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TThe  untroubled 

^J^nND    «VD    Herbert  J.  Hajll,M.D. 


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THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 


THE 
UJfTROUBLED  MIND 


BY 


HERBERT  J.  HALL,  M.D. 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


r  \  /   ; 

HEALTH    '      ^ 
LIBRARY  ^Qj  _ 


COPYRIGHT,   1915,   BY  HERBERT  J.   HALL 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  May  iqis 


PREFACE 

A  VERY  wise  physician  has  said  that 
"every  illness  has  two  parts  —  what  it 
is,  and  what  the  patient  thinks  about 
it."  What  the  patient  thinks  about  it  is 
often  more  important  and  more  trouble- 
some than  the  real  disease.  What  the 
patient  thinks  of  life,  what  life  means 
to  him  is  also  of  great  importance  and 
may  be  the  bar  that  shuts  out  all  real 
health  and  happiness.  The  following 
pages  are  devoted  to  certain  ideals  of 
life  which  I  would  like  to  give  to  my 
patients,  the  long-time  patients  who 
have  especially  fallen  to  my  lot. 

They  are  not  all  here,  the  steps  to 
health  and  happiness.  The  reader  may 
even  be  annoyed  and  baffled  by  my  in- 
directness and  unwillingness  to  be  spe- 
cific. That  I  cannot  help  —  it  is  a  per- 
sonal peculiarity;  I  cannot  ask  any  one 
to  live  by  rule,  because  I  do  not  believe 


361210 


vi  PREFACE 

that  rules  are  binding  and  final.  There 
must  be  character  behind  the  rule  and 
then  the  rule  is  unnecessary. 

All  that  I  have  written  has  doubtless 
been  presented  before,  in  better  ways, 
by  wiser  men,  but  I  believe  that  each 
writer  may  expect  to  find  his  small  pub- 
lic, his  own  particular  public  who  can 
understand  and  profit  by  his  teachings, 
having  partly  or  wholly  failed  with  the 
others.  For  that  reason  I  am  encour- 
aged to  write  upon  a  subject  usually 
shunned  by  medical  men,  being  assured 
of  at  least  a  small  company  of  friendly 
readers. 

I  am  grateful  to  a  number  of  friends 
and  patients  who  have  read  the  manu- 
script of  the  following  chapters.  These 
reviewers  have  been  frank  and  kind 
and  very  helpful.  I  am  particularly 
indebted  to  Dr.  Richard  C.  Cabot,  who 
has  given  me  much  valuable  assistance. 


CONTENTS 

I.  The  Untroubled  Mind   ...  1 

n.  Religio  Medici 10 

in.  Thought  and  Work  ....  20 

IV.  Idleness 30 

V.  Rules  of  the  Game  ....  38 

VI.  The  Nervous  Temperament  .      .  50 

Vn.  Self-Control 59 

Vni.  The  Lighter  Touch  ....  65 

IX.  Regrets  and  Forebodings     .      .  73 

X.  The  Virtues 81 

XI.  The  Cure  by  Faith  ....  88 


THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseas'd. 
Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow. 
Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain. 
And  with  some  sweet  oblivious  antidote 
Cleanse  the  stuff'd  bosom  of  that  perilous  stuff 
Which  weighs  upon  the  heart? 

Macbeth. 

When  a  man  tells  me  he  never  worries, 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  he  is  either 
deceiving  himself  or  trying  to  deceive 
me.  The  great  roots  of  worry  are  con- 
science, fear,  and  regret.  Undoubtedly 
we  ought  to  be  conscientious  and  we 
ought  to  fear  and  regret  evil.  But  if  it 
is  to  be  better  than  an  impediment  and 
a  harm,  our  worry  must  be  largely  un- 
conscious, and  intuitive.  The  moment 
we  become  conscious  of  worry  we  are 
undone.  Fortunately,  or  unfortunately, 
we  cannot  leave  conscience  to  its  own 
devices  unless  our  lives  are  big  enough 
and  fine  enough   to   warrant   such   a 


2       THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

course.  The  remedy  for  the  mental 
unrest,  which  is  in  itself  an  illness,  lies 
not  in  an  enlightened  knowledge  of 
the  harmfulness  and  ineffectiveness  of 
worry,  not  even  in  the  acquirement  of 
an  unconscious  conscience,  but  in  the  I 
living  of  a  life  so  full  and  good  that 
worry  cannot  find  place  in  it.  That 
idea  of  worry  and  conscience,  that  defi- 
nition of  serenity,  simplifies  life  im- 
mensely. To  overcome  worry  by  sub-i 
stituting  development  and  growth  needl 
never  be  dull  work.  To  know  life  in  its 
farther  reaches,  life  in  its  better  appli- 
cations, is  the  final  remedy  —  the  great 
undertaking  —  it  is  life.  We  must  warn 
ourselves,  not  infrequently,  that  the 
larger  life  is  to  be  pursued  for  its  own 
glorious  self  and  not  for  the  sake  of 
peace.  Peace  may  come,  a  peace  so 
sure  that  death  itself  cannot  shake  it, 
but  we  must  not  expect  all  our  affairs 
to  run  smoothly.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
they  may  run  badly  enough;  we  shall 
have  our  ups  and  downs,  we  shall  sin 


THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND       3 

and  repent,  and  sin  again,  but  if  in  the 
end  we  live  according  to  our  best  intui- 
tions, we  shall  be  justified,  and  we  need 
not  worry  about  the  outcome.  To  put 
it  another  way,  if  we  would  have  the 
untroubled  mind,  we  must  transfer  our 
conscientious  efforts  from  the  small  de- 
tails of  life  —  from  the  worry  and  fret 
of  common  things  —  into  another  and 
a  higher  atmosphere.  We  must  trans- 
figure common  life,  dignify  it  and  en- 
noble it;  then,  although  the  old  causes 
of  worry  may  continue,  we  shall  have 
gained  a  stature  that  will  make  us  un- 
conscious masters  of  the  little  troubles 
and  in  a  great  degree  equal  to  the  larger 
requirements.  Life  will  be  easier,  not 
because  we  make  less  effort,  but  be- 
cause we  are  working  from  another  and 
a  better  level. 

If  such  a  change,  and  it  would  be  a 
change  for  most  of  us,  could  come  about 
instantly,  in  a  flash  of  revelation,  that 
would  be  ideal,  but  it  would  not  be  life. 
We  must  return  again  and  again  to  the 


4       THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

old  uninspired  state  wherein  we  struggle 
conscientiously  with  perverse  details. 
I  would  not  minimize  the  importance 
and  value  of  this  struggle;  only  the 
sooner  it  changes  its  level  the  better  for 
every  one  concerned.  Large  serenity 
must,  finally,  be  earned  through  the 
toughening  of  moral  fibre  that  comes 
in  dealing  squarely  with  perplexing 
details.  Some  of  this  struggle  must  al- 
ways be  going  on,  but  serener  life  will 
come  when  we  begin  to  concern  our- 
selves with  larger  factors. 

How  are  we  to  live  the  larger  life? 
Partly  through  uninspired  struggle  and 
through  the  brave  meeting  of  adversity, 
but  partly,  also,  in  a  way  that  may 
be  described  as  "out  of  hand,"  by 
intuition,  by  exercise  of  the  quality 
of  mind  that  sees  visions  and  grasps 
truths  beyond  the  realms  of  common 
thought. 

I  am  more  and  more  impressed  with 
the  necessity  of  inspiration  in  life  if  we 
are  to  be  strong  and  serene,  and  so  fin- 


THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND       5 

ally  escape  the  pitfalls  of  worry  and 
conscience.  By  inspirations  I  do  not 
mean  belief  in  any  system  or  creed.  It 
is  not  a  stated  belief  that  we  need  to 
begin  with;  that  may  come  in  time. 
We  need  first  to  find  in  life,  or  at  least 
in  nature,  an  essential  beauty  that 
makes  its  own  true,  inevitable  response 
within  us.  We  must  learn  to  love  life  so 
deeply  that  we  feel  its  tremendous  sig- 
nificance, until  we  find  in  the  sea  and 
the  sky  the  evidence  of  an  overbrooding 
spirit  too  great  to  be  understood,  but 
not  too  great  to  satisfy  the  soul.  This 
is  a  sort  of  mother  religion  —  the  ma- 
trix from  which  all  sects  and  creeds  are 
born.  Its  existence  in  us  dignifies  us 
and  makes  simple,  purposeful,  and  re- 
ceptive living  almost  inevitable.  We 
may  not  know  why  we  are  living  ac- 
cording to  the  dictates  of  our  inspira- 
tion, but  we  shall  live  so  and  that  is  the 
important  consideration. 

If  I  urge  the  acquirement  of  a  reli- 
gious conception  that  we  may  cure  the 


6       THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

intolerable  distress  of  worry,  I  do  what 
I  have  already  warned  against.  It  is  so 
easy  to  make  this  mistake  that  I  have 
virtually  made  it  on  the  same  page  with 
my  warning.  We  have  no  right  to  seek 
so  great  a  thing  as  religious  experience 
that  we  may  be  relieved  of  suffering. 
Better  go  on  with  pain  and  distress  than 
cheapen  religion  by  making  it  a  remedy. 
We  must  seek  it  for  its  own  sake,  or 
rather,  we  must  not  seek  it  at  all,  lest, 
like  a  dream,  it  elude  us,  or  change  into 
something  else,  less  holy.  Neverthe- 
less, it  is  true  that  if  we  will  but  look 
with  open,  unprejudiced  eyes,  again 
and  again,  upon  the  sunrise  or  the  stars 
above  us,  we  shall  become  conscious  of 
a  presence  greater  and  more  beautiful 
than  our  minds  can  think.  In  the  expe- 
rience of  that  vision  strength  and  peace 
will  come  to  us  unbidden.  We  shall  find 
our  lives  raised,  as  by  an  unseen  force, 
above  the  warfare  of  conscience  and 
worry.  We  shall  begin  to  know  the 
meaning  of  serenity  and  of  that  price- 


THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND       7 

less,  if  not  wholly  to  be  acquired,  pos- 
session, the  untroubled  mind. 

I  am  aware  that  I  shall  be  misunder- 
stood and  perhaps  ridiculed  by  my  col- 
leagues when  I  attempt  to  discuss  reli- 
gion in  any  way.  Theology  is  a  field  in 
which  I  have  had  no  training,  but  that 
is  the  very  reason  why  I  dare  write  of 
it.  I  do  not  even  assume  that  there  is  a 
God  in  the  traditional  sense.  The  idea 
is  too  great  to  be  made  concrete  and 
literal.  No  single  fact  of  nature  can  be 
fully  understood  by  our  finite  minds. 
But  I  do  feel  vaguely  that  the  laws  that 
compass  us,  and  make  our  lives  possi- 
ble, point  always  on  —  "beyond  the 
realms  of  time  and  space"  —  toward 
the  existence  of  a  mighty  overruling 
spirit.  If  this  is  a  cold  and  inadequate 
conception  of  God,  it  is  at  least  one 
that  can  be  held  by  any  man  without 
compromise. 

The  modern  mind  is  apt  to  fail  of 
religious  understanding  and  support, 
because  of  the  arbitrary  interpretations 


8       THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

of  religion  which  are  presented  for  our 
acceptance.  It  is  what  men  say  about 
religion,  rather  than  religion  itself,  that 
repels  us.  Let  us  think  it  out  for  our- 
selves. If  we  are  open  to  a  simple,  even 
primitive,  conception  of  God,  we  may 
still  repudiate  the  creeds  and  doctrines, 
but  we  are  likely  to  become  more  toler- 
ant of  those  who  find  them  true  and 
good.  We  shall  be  likely  in  time  to  find 
the  religion  of  Christ  understandable 
and  acceptable  —  warm  and  quick  with 
life.  The  man  who  ungrudgingly  opens 
his  heart  to  the  God  of  nature  will  be 
religious  in  the  simplest  possible  sense. 
He  may  worry  l3ecause  of  the  things  he 
cannot  altogether  understand,  and  be- 
cause he  falls  so  far  short  of  the  implied 
ideal.  But  he  will  have  enlarged  his  life 
so  much  that  the  common  worries  will 
find  little  room  —  he  will  be  too  full  of 
the  joy  of  living  to  spend  much  con- 
scious thought  in  worry.  Such  a  man 
will  realize  that  he  cannot  afford  to 
spend  his  time  and  strength  in  regret- 


THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND       9 

ting  his  past  mistakes.  There  is  too 
much  in  the  future.  What  he  does  in 
the  future,  not  what  he  has  failed  to  do 
in  the  past,  will  determine  the  quality 
of  his  life.  He  knows  this,  and  the 
knowledge  sends  him  into  that  future 
with  courage  and  with  strength.  Fin- 
ally, in  some  indefinable  way,  charac- 
ter will  become  more  important  to  him 
than  physical  health  even.  Illness  is 
half  compensated  when  a  man  realizes 
that  it  is  not  what  he  accomplishes  in 
the  world,  but  what  he  is  that  really 
counts,  which  puts  him  in  touch  with 
the  creative  forces  of  God  and  raises 
him  out  of  the  aimless  and  ordinary 
into  a  life  of  inspiration  and  joy. 


II 

RELIGIO  MEDICI 

At  all  events,  it  is  certain  that  if  any  medical  man 
had  come  to  Middlemarch  with  the  reputation  of  hav- 
ing definite  religious  views,  of  being  given  to  prayer 
and  of  otherwise  showing  an  active  piety,  there  would 
have  been  a  general  presumption  against  his  medical 
skill. 

George  Eliot. 

When  a  medically  educated  man  talks 
and  writes  of  religion  and  of  God,  he  is 
rightly  enough  questioned  by  his  brothers 
—  who  are  too  busy  with  the  hard  work 
of  practice  to  be  concerned  with  any- 
thing but  material  problems.  To  me  the 
word  "God"  is  symbolic  of  the  power 
which  created  and  which  maintains  the 
universe.  The  sunrise  and  the  stars  of 
heaven  give  me  some  idea  of  his  majesty, 
the  warmth  and  tenderness  of  human 
love  give  me  some  idea  of  his  divine 
love.  That  is  all  I  know,  but  it  is 
enough  to  make  life  glow;  it  is  enough 
to  inspire  the  most  intense  devotion  to 


RELIGIO  MEDICI  11 

any  good  cause;  it  is  enough  to  make 
me  bear  suffering  with  some  degree  of 
patience;  and  it  is  enough,  finally,  to 
give  me  some  confidence  and  courage 
even  in  the  face  of  the  great  mystery  of 
death.  Why  this  or  another  conception 
of  God  should  produce  such  a  profound 
result  upon  any  one,  I  do  not  know, 
except  that  in  some  obscure  way  it  con- 
nects the  individual  with  the  divine 
plan,  and  does  not  leave  him  outside  in 
despair  and  loneliness.  However  that 
may  be,  it  will  be  conceded  that  a  reli- 
gious conception  of  some  kind  does 
much  toward  justifying  life,  toward 
making  it  strong  and  livable,  and  so 
has  directly  to  do  with  certain  import- 
ant problems  of  illness  and  health.  The 
most  practical  medical  man  will  admit 
that  any  illness  is  made  lighter  and 
more  likely  to  recover  in  the  presence 
of  hope  and  serenity  in  the  mind  of  the 
patient. 

Naturally  the  great  bulk  of  medical 
practice  calls  for  no  handling  other  than 


n     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

that  of  the  straight  medical  sort.  A 
man  comes  in  with  a  crushed  finger,  a 
girl  with  anaemia  —  the  way  is  clear. 
It  is  only  in  deeper,  more  intricate  de- 
partments of  medicine  that  we  alto- 
gether fail.  The  bacteriologist  and  the 
pathologist  have  no  use  for  mental 
treatment,  in  their  departments.  But 
when  we  come  to  the  case  of  the  ner- 
vously broken-down  school  teacher,  or 
the  worn-out  telegrapher,  that  is  an- 
other matter.  Years  may  elapse  before 
work  can  be  resumed  —  years  of  de- 
pendence and  anxiety.  Here,  a  new 
view  of  life  is  often  more  useful  than 
drugs,  a  view  that  accepts  the  situation 
reasonably  after  a  while,  that  does  not 
grope  blindly  and  impatiently  for  a 
cure,  but  finds  in  life  an  inspiration  that 
makes  it  good  in  spite  of  necessary  suf- 
fering and  limitations.  Often  enough 
we  cannot  promise  a  cure,  but  we  must 
be  prepared  to  give  something  better. 

A  great  deal  of  the  fatigue  and  un- 
happiness  of  the  world  is  due  to  the  fact 


RELIGIO  MEDICI  13 

that  we  do  not  go  deep  enough  in  our  ^ 
justification  for  work  or  play,  or  for  any 
experience,  happy  or  sad.  There  is  a 
good  deal  of  a  void  after  we  have  said, 
"Art  for  art's  sake,"  or  "Play  for  the 
joy  of  playing,"  or  even  after  we  have 
said,  "I  am  working  for  the  sake  of  my 
family,  or  for  some  one  who  needs  my 
help."  That  is  not  enough;  and  whether 
we  realize  it  or  not,  the  lack  of  deeper 
justification  is  at  the  bottom  of  a  rest- 
lessness and  uncertainty  which  we 
might  not  be  willing  to  acknowledge, 
but  which  nevertheless  is  very  real. 

I  am  not  satisfied  when  some  moralist 
says,  "Be  good  and  you  will  be  happy." 
The  kind  of  happiness  that  comes  from 
a  perfunctory  goodness  is  a  thing  which 
I  cannot  understand,  and  which  I  cer- 
tainly do  not  want.  If  I  work  and  play 
and  serve  and  employ,  making  up  the 
fabric  of  a  busy  life,  if  I  attain  a  very 
real  happiness,  I  am  tormented  by  the 
desire  to  know  why  I  am  doing  it,  and 
I  am  not  satisfied  with  the  answer  I 


14     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

usually  get.    The  patient  may  not  be 
cured  when  he  is  relieved  of  his  anaemia, 
or  when  his  emaciation  has  given  place 
to  the  plumpness  and  suppleness  and 
physical  strength  that  we  call  health. 
The  man  whom  we  look  upon  as  well, 
and  who  has  never  known  physical  ill- 
ness, is  not  well  in  the  larger  sense  until 
he  knows  why  he  is  working,  why  he  is 
living,  why  he  is  filling  his  life  with 
activity.   In  spite  of  the  elasticity  and 
spring  of  the  world's  interests,  there 
must  come  often,  and  with  a  kind  of 
fatal  insistence,  the  deep  demand  for  a 
cause,  for  a  justification.  If  there  is  not 
an  adequate  significance  behind  it,  life, 
with  all  its  courage  and  accomplish- 
ment, seems  but  a  sorry  thing,  so  full  of 
pathos,  even  in  its  brightest  moments, 
so  shadowed  with  a  sense  of  loss  and  of 
finality  that  the  bravest  heart  may  well 
fail  and  the  truest  courage  relax,  sup- 
ported only  by  the  assurance  that  this 
way  lies  happiness  or  that  right  is  right. 
What   is   this  knowledge  that   the 


RELIGIO  MEDICI  15 

world  is  seeking,  but  can  never  find? 
What  is  this  final  justification?  If  we 
seek  it  in  its  completeness,  we  are 
doomed  always  to  be  ill  and  unsatisfied. 
If  we  are  willing  to  look  only  a  little 
way  into  the  great  question,  if  we  are 
willing  to  accept  a  little  for  the  whole, 
content  because  it  is  manifestly  part  of 
the  final  knowledge,  and  because  we 
know  that  final  knowledge  rests  with 
God  alone,  we  shall  understand  enough 
to  save  us  from  much  sorrow  and  pain- 
ful incompleteness. 

There  is,  in  the  infinitely  varied  and 
beautiful  world  of  nature,  and  in  the 
hearts  of  men,  so  much  of  beauty  and 
truth  that  it  is  a  wonder  we  do  not  all 
realize  that  these  things  of  common  life 
may  be  in  us  and  for  us  the  daily  and 
hourly  expression  of  the  infinite  being 
we  call  God.  We  do  not  see  God,  but 
we  do  feel  and  know  so  much  that  we 
may  fairly  believe  to  be  of  God  that 
we  do  not  need  to  see  Him  face  to  face. 
It  is  something  more  than  imagination 


16     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

to  feel  that  it  is  the  life  of  God  in  our 
lives,  so  often  unrecognized  or  ignored, 
that  prompts  us  to  all  the  greatness  and 
the  inspiration  and  the  accomplishment 
of  the  world.  If  we  could  know  more 
clearly  the  joy  of  such  a  conception, 
we  should  dry  up  at  its  source  much  of 
the  unhappiness  which  is,  in  a  deep  and 
subtle  way,  at  the  bottom  of  many  a 
nervous  illness  and  many  a  wretched 
existence. 

The  happiness  which  is  found  in 
the  recognition  of  kinship  with  God, 
through  the  common  things  of  life,  in 
the  experiences  which  are  so  significant 
that  they  could  not  spring  from  a  lesser 
source,  the  happiness  which  is  not 
sought,  but  which  is  the  inevitable  re- 
sult of  such  recognition  —  this  experi- 
ence goes  a  long  way  toward  making 
life  worth  living. 

If  we  do  have  this  conception  of  life, 
then  some  of  the  old,  old  questions  that 
have  vexed  so  many  dwellers  upon  the 
earth  will  no  longer  be  a  source  of  un- 


RELIGIO  MEDICI  17 

happiness  or  of  illness  of  mind  or  body. 
The  question  of  immortality,  for  in- 
stance, which  has  made  us  afraid  to  die, 
will  no  longer  be  a  question  —  we  shall 
not  need  to  answer  it,  in  the  presence  of 
God,  in  our  lives  and  in  the  world  about 
us.  We  shall  be  content  finally  to  ac- 
cept whatever  is  in  store  for  us  —  so  it 
be  the  will  of  God.  We  may  even  look 
for  something  better  than  mere  immor- 
tality, something  more  divine  than  our 
gross  conception  of  eternal  life. 

This  is  a  religion  that  I  believe  med- 
ical men  may  teach  without  hesitation 
whenever  the  need  shall  arise.  I  know 
well  enough  that  many  a  blunt  if  kindly 
man  cannot  bring  himself  to  say  these 
words,  even  if  he  believes  them,  but  I 
do  think  that  in  some  measure  they 
point  the  way  to  what  may  wisely  be 
taught. 

There  is  a  practice  of  medicine  —  the 
common  practice  —  that  is  concerned 
with  the  body  only,  and  with  its  chem- 
ical and  mechanical  reactions.  We  can 


18     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

have  nothing  but  respect  and  admira- 
tion for  the  men  who  go  on  year  after 
year  in  the  eager  pursuit  of  this  calling. 
We  know  that  such  a  work  is  necessary, 
that  it  is  just  as  important  as  the  edu- 
cational practice  of  which  I  write.  We 
know  that  without  the  physical  side 
medicine  would  fail  of  its  usefulness 
and  that  disease  and  death  would  reap 
far  richer  harvests :  I  only  wish  the  two 
naturally  related  aspects  of  our  dealing 
with  patients  might  not  be  so  com- 
pletely separated  that  they  lose  sight  of 
each  other.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  both 
elements  are  necessary  to  our  human 
welfare.  K  medicine  devotes  itself  alto- 
gether to  the  cure  and  prevention  of 
physical  disease,  it  will  miss  half  of  its 
possibilities.  It  is  equally  true  that  if 
we  forget  the  physical  necessities  in  our 
zeal  for  spiritual  hygiene,  we  shall  get 
and  deserve  complete  and  humiliating 
failure.  Many  men  will  say,  "Why  mix 
the  two?  Why  not  let  the  preachers  and 
the  philosophers  preach  and  the  doctors 


RELIGIO  MEDICI  19 

follow  their  own  ways?"  For  the  most 
part  this  may  have  to  be  the  arrange- 
ment, but  the  doctor  who  can  see  and 
treat  the  spiritual  needs  of  his  patient 
will  always  be  more  likely  to  cure  in  the 
best  sense  than  the  doctor  who  sees  only 
half  of  the  picture.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  philosopher  is  likely  to  be  a  com- 
paratively poor  doctor,  because  he 
knows  nothing  of  medicine,  and  so  can 
see  only  the  other  half  of  the  picture. 
There  is  much  to  be  said  for  the  religion 
of  medicine  if  it  can  be  kept  free  from 
cant,  if  it  can  be  simple  and  rational 
enough  to  be  available  for  the  whole 
world. 


Ill 

THOUGHT  AND  WORK 

I  wish  I  had  a  trade!  —  It  would  animate  my  anns 
and  tranquilize  my  brain. 

Senancoub. 

"Doe  ye  nexte  thynge."  —  Old  English  Proverb. 

Since  our  minds  are  so  constantly  filled 
with  anxiety,  there  would  seem  to  be  at 
least  one  sure  way  to  be  rid  of  it  —  to 
stop  thinking. 

A  great  many  people  believe  that  the 
mind  will  become  less  effective,  that 
life  will  become  dull  and  purposeless, 
unless  they  are  constantly  thinking  and 
planning  and  arranging  their  affairs.  I 
believe  that  the  mind  may  easily  and 
wisely  be  free  from  conscious  thought  a 
good  deal  of  the  time,  and  that  the 
greatest  progress  and  development  in 
mind  often  comes  when  the  thinker  is 
virtually  at  rest,  when  his  mind  is  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  blank.  The  busy, 


THOUGHT  AND  WORK        21 

unconscious  mind  does  its  best  work  in 
the  serenity  of  an  atmosphere  which 
does  not  interfere  and  confuse. 

It  is  true  that  the  greatest  concep- 
tions do  not  come  to  the  untrained  and 
undisciplined  mind.  But  do  we  want 
great  conceptions  all  the  time?  There 
is  a  technical  training  for  the  mind 
which  is,  of  course,  necessary  for  spe- 
cial accomplishments,  but  this  is  quite 
another  matter.  Even  this  kind  of 
thought  must  not  obtrude  too  much, 
lest  we  become  conscious  of  our  men- 
tal processes  and  so  end  in  confusion. 

One  of  the  greatest  benefits  of  work 
with  the  hands,  or  of  objective  and  con- 
structive work  with  the  mind,  is  that  it 
saves  us  from  unending  hours  of  think- 
ing. Work  should,  of  course,  find  its 
fullest  justification  as  an  expression  of 
faith.  If  we  have  ever  so  dim  a  vision 
of  a  greater  significance  in  life,  of  its 
close  relationship  to  infinite  things,  we 
become  thereby  conscious  of  the  need  of 
service,  of  the  need  of  work.   It  is  the 


22     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

easy,  natural  expression  of  our  faith, 
the  inevitable  result  of  a  spiritual  con- 
tact with  the  great  working  forces  of 
the  world.  It  is  work  above  all  else  that 
saves  us  from  the  disasters  of  conflict- 
ing thought. 

A  few  years  ago  a  young  man  came  to 
me,  suffering  from  too  much  thinking. 
He  had  just  been  graduated  from  col- 
lege and  his  head  was  full  of  confused 
ideas  and  emotions.  He  was  also  very 
tired,  having  overworked  in  his  prepa- 
ration for  examinations,  and  because 
he  had  not  taken  the  best  care  of  his 
body.  The  symptoms  he  complained 
of  were  sleeplessness  and  worry,  to- 
gether with  the  inevitable  indigestion 
and  headache.  Of  course,  as  a  physi- 
cian, I  went  over  the  bodily  functions 
carefully,  and  studied,  as  far  as  I  might, 
into  the  organic  conditions.  I  could  find 
no  evidence  of  physical  disease.  I  did 
not  say,  "There  is  nothing  the  matter 
with  you  ";  for  the  man  was  sick.  I  told 
him  that  he  was  tired,  that  he  had 


THOUGHT  AND  WORK        23 

thought  too  much,  that  he  was  too 
much  concerned  about  himself,  and 
that  as  a  result  of  all  this  his  bodily 
functions  were  temporarily  upset.  He 
thought  he  ought  to  worry  about  him- 
self, because  otherwise  he  would  not  be 
trying  to  get  well.  I  explained  to  him 
that  this  mistaken  obligation  was  the 
common  reason  for  worry,  and  that  in 
this  case,  at  least,  it  was  quite  unneces- 
sary and  even  harmful  for  him  to  go  on 
thinking  about  himself.  That  helped  a 
little,  but  not  nearly  enough,  because 
when  a  man  has  overworked,  when  he 
has  begun  to  worry,  and  when  his  vari- 
ous bodily  functions  show  results  of 
worry,  no  reasoning,  no  explanations, 
can  wholly  relieve  him.  I  said  to  this 
young  man,  "In  spite  of  your  discom- 
forts, in  spite  of  your  depression  and 
concern  in  regard  to  yourself,  you  will 
get  well  if  you  will  stop  thinking  about 
the  matter  altogether.  You  must  be 
first  convinced  that  it  is  best  for  you  to 
stop  thinking,  that  no  harm  or  violence 


24     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

can  result,  and  then  you  must  be  helped 
in  this  direction  by  going  to  work  with 
your  hands  —  that  will  be  life  and  pro- 
gress, it  will  lead  you  to  health." 

Fortunately  I  had  had  some  experi- 
ence with  nervous  illness,  and  I  knew 
that  unless  I  managed  for  this  man  the 
character  and  extent  of  his  work,  he 
would  not  only  fail  in  it,  but  of  its  object, 
and  so  become  more  confused  and  dis- 
couraged. I  knew  the  troubled  mind,  in 
this  instance,  might  find  its  solace  and 
its  relief  in  work,  but  that  I  must  choose 
the  work  carefully  to  suit  the  individual, 
and  I  must  see  that  the  nervously 
fatigued  body  was  not  pushed  too  hard. 

In  the  town  where  I  live  is  a  black- 
smith shop,  presided  over  by  a  genial 
old  man  who  has  been  a  blacksmith 
since  he  was  a  boy,  and  in  whose  hands 
iron  is  like  clay.  I  took  my  patient 
down  to  the  smithy  and  said,  "Here 
is  a  young  man  whom  I  want  to  put 
to  work.  He  will  pay  for  the  chance. 
I  want  you  first  to  teach  him  to  make 


THOUGHT  AND  WORK        25 

hand- wrought  nails."  This  was  a  good 
deal  of  a  joke  to  the  smith  and  to  the 
patient,  but  they  saw  that  I  was  in 
earnest  and  agreed  to  go  ahead.  We 
got  together  the  proper  tools  and  pro- 
ceeded to  make  nails,  a  job  which  is 
really  not  very  difficult.  After  an  hour's 
work,  I  called  off  my  patient,  much  to 
his  disgust,  for  he  was  just  beginning  to 
be  interested.  But  I  knew  that  if  he 
were  to  keep  on  until  fatigue  should 
come,  the  whole  matter  would  end  in 
trouble.  So  the  next  day,  with  some 
new  overalls  and  a  leather  apron  added 
to  the  equipment,  we  proceeded  to 
another  hour's  work.  We  went  on  this 
way  for  three  or  four  days,  before  the 
time  was  increased. 

The  interest  of  the  patient  was  always 
fresh,  he  was  eager  for  more,  and  he  did 
not  taste  the  dregs  of  fatigue.  Yet  he 
did  get  the  wholesome  exercise,  and  he 
did  get  the  strong  turning  of  the  mind 
from  its  worry  and  concern.  Of  course, 
the  rest  of  the  day  was  taken  care  of  in 


26     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

one  way  or  another,  but  the  work  was 
the  central  feature.  In  a  week,  we  were 
at  it  two  hours  a  day,  in  three  weeks, 
four  hours,  and  in  a  month,  five  hours. 
He  had  made  a  handsome  display  of 
hand-wrought  nails,  a  superior  line  of 
pokers  and  shovels  for  fireplaces,  to- 
gether with  a  number  of  very  respect- 
able andirons.  On  each  of  these  larger 
pieces  of  handiwork  my  patient  had 
stamped  his  initials  with  a  little  steel 
die  that  was  made  for  him.  Each  piece 
was  his  own,  each  piece  was  the  product 
of  his  own  versatility  and  his  own 
strength.  His  pride  and  pleasure  in  this 
work  were  very  great,  and  well  they 
might  be,  for  it  is  a  fine  thing  to  have 
learned  to  handle  so  intractable  a 
material  as  iron.  But  in  handling  the 
iron  patiently  and  consistently  until  he 
could  do  it  without  too  much  conscious 
thinking,  and  so  without  effort,  he  had 
also  learned  to  handle  himself  naturally, 
more  simply  and  easily. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  illness  which 


'THOUGHT  AND  AYORK        27 

had  brought  this  boy  to  me  was  pretty 
nearly  cured  by  his  blacksmithing,  be- 
cause it  was  an  ilhiess  of  the  mind  and 
of  the  nerves,  and  not  of  the  body, 
although  the  body  had  suffered  in  its 
turn.  That  young  man,  instead  of  be- 
coming a  nervous  invalid  as  he  might 
have  done,  is  now  working  steadily  in 
partnership  with  his  father,  in  business 
in  the  city.  I  had  found  him  a  very 
interesting  patient,  full  of  originality 
and  not  at  all  the  tedious  and  boresome 
person  he  might  have  been  had  I  lis- 
tened day  after  day,  week  after  week 
to  the  recital  of  his  ills.  I  was  willing  to 
listen,  —  I  did  listen,  —  but  I  also  gave 
him  a  new  trend  of  life,  which  pretty 
soon  made  his  complaints  sound  hollow 
and  then  disappear. 

Of  course,  the  problem  is  not  always 
so  simple  as  this,  and  we  must  often 
deal  with  complexities  of  body  and 
mind  requiring  prolonged  investigation 
and  treatment.  I  cite  this  case  because 
it  shows  clearly  that  relief  from  some 


28     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

forms  of  nervous  illness  can  come  when 
we  stop  thinking,  when  we  stop  analyz- 
ing, and  then  back  up  our  position  with 
prescribed  work. 

There  may  be  some  nervous  invalids 
who  reads  these  lines  who  will  say, 
"But  I  have  tried  so  many  times  to 
work  and  have  failed."  Unfortunately, 
such  failure  must  often  occur  unless  we 
can  proceed  with  care  and  with  under- 
standing. But  the  principle  remains 
true,  although  it  must  be  modified  in 
an  infinite  variety  to  meet  the  changing 
conditions  of  individuals. 

I  see  a  great  many  people  who  are 
conscientiously  trying  to  get  well  from 
nervous  exhaustion.  They  almost  inev- 
itably try  too  hard.  They  think  and 
worry  too  much  about  it,  and  so  ex- 
haust themselves  the  more.  This  is  the 
greater  pity  because  it  is  the  honest  and 
the  conscientious  people  who  make  the 
greatest  effort.  It  is  very  hard  for  them 
to  realize  that  they  must  stop  thinking, 
stop  trying,  and  if  possible  get  to  work 


THOUGHT  AND  WORK        29 

before  they  can  accomplish  their  end.  ^ 
We  shall  have  to  repeat  to  them  over 
and  over  again  that  they  must  stop 
thinking  the  matter  out,  because  the 
thing  they  are  attempting  to  overcome 
is  too  subtle  to  be  met  in  that  way.  So, 
if  they  are  fortunate,  they  may  rid 
themselves  of  the  vagueness  and  uncer- 
tainty of  life,  until  all  the  multitude  of 
details  which  go  to  make  up  life  lose 
their  desultoriness  and  their  lack  of 
meaning,  and  they  may  find  themselves 
no  longer  the  subjects  of  physical  or  N- 
nervous  exhaustion. 


IV 

IDLENESS 

O  ye!  who  have  your  eyeballs  vex'd  and  tir*d. 
Feast  them  upon  the  wideness  of  the  sea. 

Keats. 

Extreme  busyness,  whether  at  school  or  college, 
kirk  or  market,  is  a  symptom  of  deficient  vitality;  and 
a  faculty  for  idleness  implies  a  catholic  appetite  and 
a  strong  sense  of  personal  identity. 

Stevenson. 

It  is  an  unfortunate  fact  that  very  few 
people  are  able  to  be  idle  successfully. 
I  think  it  is  not  so  much  because  we 
misuse  idleness  as  because  we  misinter- 
pret it  that  the  long  days  become  in- 
creasingly demoralizing.  I  would  ask 
no  one  to  accept  a  forced  idleness  with- 
out objection  or  regret.  Such  an  accept- 
ance would  imply  a  lack  of  spirit,  to  say 
the  least.  But  idleness  and  rest  are  not 
incompatible;  neither  are  idleness  and 
service,  nor  idleness  and  contentment. 
If  we  can  look  upon  rest  as  a  prepara- 
tion for  service,  if  we  can  make  it  serve 


IDLENESS  SI 

us  in  the  opportunity  it  gives  for  quiet 
growth  and  legitimate  enjoyment,  then 
it  is  fully  justified  and  it  may  offer  ad- 
vantages and  opportunity  of  the  best. 

The  chief  trouble  with  idleness  is  that 
it  so  often  means  introspection,  worry, 
and  impatience,  especially  to  those  con- 
scientious souls  who  would  fain  be  about 
their  business. 

I  have  for  a  long  time  been  accus- 
tomed to  combat  the  worry  and  fret  of 
necessary  idleness  —  not  by  forbidding 
it,  not  by  advising  struggle  and  fight 
against  it,  but  by  insisting  that  the 
best  way  to  get  rid  of  it  is  to  leave  it 
alone,  to  accept  it.  When  we  do  this 
there  may  come  a  kind  of  fallow  time  in 
which  the  mind  enriches  and  refreshes 
itself  beyond  our  conception. 

I  would  rather  my  patient  who  must 
rest  for  a  long  time  would  give  up  all 
thought  of  method,  would  give  up  all 
idea  of  making  his  mind  follow  any 
particular  line  of  thought  or  absence  of 
thought.   I  know  that  the  mind  which 


32    THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

has  been  under  conscious  control  a  good 
deal  of  the  time  is  apt  to  rebel  at  this 
freedom  and  to  indulge  in  all  kinds  of 
alarming  extravagances.  I  am  sure, 
however,  that  the  best  way  to  meet 
these  demands  for  conscious  control  is 
to  be  careless  of  them,  to  be  willing 
to  experience  these  extravagances  and 
inconsistencies  without  fear,  in  the  be- 
lief that  finally  will  come  a  quiet  and 
peace  which  will  be  all  that  we  can  ask. 
The  peace  of  mind  that  is  unguided, 
in  the  conscious  and  literal  sense,  is  a 
thing  which  too  few  of  us  know. 

Mr.  Arnold  Bennett,  in  his  little 
book,  "How  to  Live  on  Twenty-four 
Hours  a  Day,"  teaches  that  we  should 
leave  no  time  unused  in  our  lives;  that 
we  should  accomplish  a  great  deal  more 
and  be  infinitely  more  effective  and 
progressive  if  we  devoted  our  minds  to 
the  definite  working-out  of  necessary 
problems  whenever  those  times  occur 
in  which  we  are  apt  to  be  desultory.  I 
wish  here  to  make  a  plea  for  desultori- 


IDLENESS  33 

ness  and  for  an  idleness  which  goes  even 
beyond  the  idleness  of  the  man  who 
reads  the  newspaper  and  forgets  what 
he  has  read.  It  seems  to  me  better, 
whether  we  are  sick  or  well,  to  allow 
long  periods  in  our  lives  when  we  think 
only  casually.  To  the  good  old  adage, 
"Work  while  you  work  and  play  whiles 
you  play,"  we  might  well  add,  "Rest 
while  you  rest,"  lest  in  the  end  you 
should  be  unable  successfully  either  to 
work  or  play. 

A  man  is  not  necessarily  condemned 
to  tortures  of  mind  because  he  must 
rest  for  a  week  or  a  month  or  a  year. 
I  know  that  there  must  be  anxious 
times,  especially  when  idleness  means 
dependence,  and  when  it  brings  hard- 
ship to  those  who  need  our  help.  But 
the  invalid  must  not  try  constantly  to 
puzzle  the  matter  out.  If  we  do  not 
make  ourselves  sick  with  worry,  we 
shall  be  able  sometime  to  approach 
active  life  with  suflScient  frankness  and 
force.    It  is  the  constant  effort  of  the\ 


34     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

poor,  tired  mind  to  solve  its  problems 
that  not  only  fails  of  its  object,  but 
plunges  the  invalid  deeper  into  dis- 
couragement and  misunderstanding. 
How  cruel  this  is,  and  how  unfortunate 
that  it  should  come  more  commonly  to 
those  who  try  the  hardest  to  overcome 
their  handicaps,  to  throw  off  the  yoke 
of  idleness  and  to  be  well. 

When  you  have  tried  your  best  to 
get  back  to  your  work  and  have  failed, 
when  you  have  done  this  not  once  but 
many  times,  it  is  inevitable  that  mis- 
understanding should  creep  in,  inevit- 
able that  you  should  question  very 
deeply  and  doubt  not  infrequently. 
Yet  the  chances  are  that  one  of  the 
reasons  for  your  failure  is  that  you  have 
tried  too  hard,  that  you  have  not  known 
how  to  rest.  When  you  have  learned 
how  to  rest,  when  you  have  learned  to 
put  off  thinking  and  planning  until  the 
mind  becomes  fresh  and  clear,  when 
you  are  in  a  fair  way  to  know  the  joy  of 
idleness  and  the  peace  of  rest,  you  are  a 


IDLENESS  35 

great  deal  more  likely  to  get  back  to 
efficiency  and  to  find  your  way  along 
the  great  paths  of  activity  into  the 
world  of  life. 

It  is  not  so  much  the  idleness,  then, 
as  the  attempt  to  overcome  its  irksome- 
ness,  that  makes  this  condition  painful. 
The  invalid  in  bed  is  in  a  trap,  to  be  tor- 
mented by  his  thoughts  unless  he  knows 
the  meaning  of  successful  idleness.  This 
knowledge  may  come  to  him  by  such 
strategy  as  I  have  suggested  —  by  giv- 
ing up  the  struggle  against  worry  and 
fret;  but  peace  will  come  surely,  stead- 
ily, "with  healing  in  its  wings,"  when 
the  mind  is  changed  altogether,  when 
life  becomes  free  because  of  a  growth 
and  development  that  finds  significance 
even  in  idleness,  that  sees  the  world 
with  wise  and  patient  eyes. 

In  a  way  it  does  not  matter,  your 
physical  condition  or  mine,  if  our  "eyes 
have  seen  the  glory"  that  deifies  life 
and  makes  even  its  waste  places  beauti- 
ful. What  is  that  view  from  your  win- 


36     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

dow  as  you  lie  in  your  bed?  A  bit  of 
the  sea,  if  you  are  fortunate,  a  corner 
of  garden,  surely,  the  top  of  an  elm  tree 
against  the  blue.  What  is  it  but  the 
revelations  of  a  God  in  the  world? 
There  is  enough  that  is  sad  and  un- 
happy, but  over  all  are  these  simple, 
ineffable  things.  If  the  garden  is  an 
expression  of  God  in  the  world,  then 
the  world  and  life  are  no  longer  mean- 
ingless. Even  idleness  becomes  in  some 
degree  bearable  because  it  is  a  part  of  a 
significant  world. 

Unfortunately,  the  idleness  of  dis- 
ability often  means  pain,  the  wear  and 
tear  of  physical  or  nervous  suffering. 
That  is  another  matter.  We  cannot 
meet  it  fully  with  any  philosophy.  My 
patients  very  often  beg  to  know  the 
best  way  to  bear  pain,  how  they  may 
overcome  the  attacks  of  "nerves"  that 
are  harder  to  bear  than  pain.  To  such  a 
question  I  can  only  say  that  the  time  to 
bear  pain  is  before  and  after.  Live  in 
such  a  way  in  the  times  of  comparative 


IDLENESS  37 

comfort  that  the  attacks  are  less  Hkely 
to  appear  and  easier  to  bear  when  they 
do  come.  After  the  pain  or  the  "ner- 
vous" attack  is  over,  that  is  the  time 
to  prevent  the  worst  features  of  an- 
other. Forget  the  distress;  live  simply 
and  happily  in  spite  of  the  memory, 
and  you  will  have  done  all  that  the 
patient  himself  can  do  to  ward  off  or 
to  make  tolerable  the  next  occasion  of 
suffering.  Pain  itself  —  pure  physical 
pain  —  is  a  matter  for  the  physician's 
judgment.  It  is  his  business  to  seek  out 
the  causes  and  apply  the  remedy. 


RULES  OF  THE  GAME 

It  is  not  growing  like  a  tree 

In  bulk,  doth  make  man  better  be. 

Ben  Jonson. 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  have  a  sound  body,  better  to 
have  a  sane  mind,  but  neither  is  to  be  compared  to 
that  aggregate  of  virile  and  decent  quaUties  which  we 
call  character. 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

The  only  effective  remedy  against  inexorable  neces- 
sity is  to  yield  to  it. 

Petrarch. 

When  I  go  about  among  my  patients, 
most  of  them,  as  it  happens,  "ner- 
vously" sick,  I  sometimes  stop  to  con- 
sider why  it  is  they  are  ill.  I  know  that 
some  are  so  because  of  physical  weak- 
ness over  which  they  have  no  control, 
that  some  are  suffering  from  the  effects 
of  carelessness,  some  from  wilfulness, 
and  more  from  simple  ignorance  of  the 
rules  of  the  game.  There  are  so  many 
rules  that  no  one  will  ever  know  them 


RULES  OF  THE  GAME        39 

all,  but  it  seems  that  we  live  in  a  world 
of  laws,  and  that  if  we  transgress  those 
laws  by  ever  so  little,  we  must  suffer 
equally,  whether  our  transgression  is  a 
mistake  or  not,  and  whether  we  happen 
to  be  saints  or  sinners.  There  are  laws 
also  which  have  to  do  with  the  recovery 
of  poise  and  balance  when  these  have 
been  lost.  These  laws  are  less  well  ob- 
served and  understood  than  those  which 
determine  our  downfall. 

The  more  gross  illnesses,  from  acci- 
dent, contagion,  and  malignancy,  we 
need  not  consider  here,  but  only  those 
intangible  injuries  that  disable  people 
who  are  relatively  sound  in  the  physical 
sense.  It  is  true  that  nervous  troubles 
may  cause  physical  complications  and 
that  physical  disease  very  often  coexists 
with  nervous  illness,  but  it  is  better 
for  us  now  to  make  an  artificial  separa- 
tion. Just  what  happens  in  the  human 
economy  when  a  "nervous  breakdown" 
comes,  nobody  seems  to  know,  but 
mind  and  body  cooperate  to  make  the 


40     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

patient  miserable  and  helpless.  It  may 
be  nature's  way  of  holding  us  up  and 
preventing  further  injury.  The  hold-up 
is  severe,  usually,  and  becomes  in  itself 
a  thing  to  be  managed. 

The  rules  we  have  wittingly  or  un- 
wittingly broken  are  often  unknown 
to  us,  but  they  exist  in  the  All-Wise 
Providence,  and  we  may  guess  by  our 
own  suffering  how  far  we  have  over- 
stepped them.  If  a  man  runs  into  a 
door  in  the  dark,  we  know  all  about 
that,  —  the  case  is  simple,  —  but  if  he 
runs  overtime  at  his  oflSce  and  hastens 
to  be  rich  with  the  result  of  a  nervous 
dyspepsia  —  that  is  a  mystery.  Here  is 
a  girl  who  "came  out"  last  year.  She 
was  apparently  strong  and  her  mother 
was  ambitious  for  her  social  progress. 
That  meant  four  nights  a  week  for  sev- 
eral months  at  dances  and  dinners,  get- 
ting home  at  3  a.m.  or  later.  It  was  gay 
and  delightful  while  it  lasted,  but  it 
could  not  last,  and  the  girl  went  to 
pieces  suddenly;  her  back  gave  out  be- 


RULES  OF  THE  GAME        41 

cause  it  was  not  strong  enough  to  stand 
the  dancing  and  the  long-continued 
physical  strain.  The  nerves  gave  out 
because  she  did  not  give  her  faculties 
time  to  rest,  and  perhaps  because  of  a 
love  affair  that  supervened.  The  result 
was  a  year  of  invalidism,  and  then,  be- 
cause the  rules  of  recovery  were  not 
understood,  several  years  more  of  con- 
valescence. Such  common  rules  should 
be  well  enough  understood,  but  they 
are  broken  everywhere  by  the  wisest 
people. 

The  common  case  of  the  broken- 
down  school  teacher  is  more  unfortu- 
nate. This  tragedy  and  others  like  it 
are  more  often,  I  believe,  due  to  un- 
wise choice  of  profession  in  the  first 
place.  The  women's  colleges  are  turn- 
ing out  hundreds  of  young  women  every 
year  who  naturally  consider  teaching 
as  the  field  most  appropriate  and  avail- 
able. Probably  only  a  very  small  pro- 
portion of  these  girls  are  strong  enougt 
physically  or  nervously  to  meet  tht 


42    THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

growing  demands  of  the  schools.  They 
may  do  well  for  a  time,  some  of  them 
unusually  well,  for  it  is  the  sensitive, 
high-strung  organism  that  is  apprecia- 
tive and  effective.  After  a  while  the 
worry  and  fret  of  the  requirements  and 
the  constant  nag  of  the  schoolroom 
have  their  effect  upon  those  who  are 
foredoomed  to  failure  in  that  particular 
field.  The  plight  of  such  young  women 
is  particularly  hard,  for  they  are  usu- 
ally dependent  upon  their  work. 

It  is,  after  all,  not  so  much  the  things 
we  do  as  the  way  we  do  them,  and  what 
we  think  about  them,  that  accomplishes 
nervous  harm.  Strangely  enough,  the 
sense  of  effort  and  the  feeling  of  our 
own  inadequacy  damage  the  nervous^ 
system  quite  as  much  as  the  actual 
physical  effort.  The  attempt  to  catch 
up  with  life  and  with  affairs  that  go  on 
too  fast  for  us  is  a  frequent  and  harm- 
ful deflection  from  the  rules  of  the  game. 
Few  of  us  avoid  it.  Life  comes  at  us 
and  goes  by  very  fast.  Tasks  multiply 


RULES  OF  THE  GAME        43 

and  we  are  inadequate,  responsibilities 
increase  before  we  are  ready.  They 
bring  fatigue  and  confusion.  We  can- 
not shirk  and  be  true.  Having  done  all 
you  reasonably  can,  stop,  whatever 
may  be  the  consequences.  That  is  a 
rule  I  would  enforce  if  I  could.  To  do 
more  is  to  drag  and  fail,  so  defeating 
the  end  of  your  efforts.  If  it  turns  out 
that  you  are  not  fit  for  the  job  you  have 
undertaken,  give  it  up  and  find  another, 
or  modify  that  one  until  it  comes  within 
your  capacity.  It  takes  courage  to  do 
this  —  more  courage  sometimes  than  is 
needed  to  make  us  stick  to  the  thing 
we  are  doing.  Rarely,  however,  will  it 
be  necessary  for  us  to  give  up  if  we  will 
undertake  and  consider  for  the  day 
only  such  part  of  our  task  as  we  are 
able  to  perform.  The  trouble  is  that 
we  look  at  o.ur  work  or  our  responsibil- 
ity all  in  one  piece,  and  it  crushes  us. 
If  we  cannot  arrange  our  lives  so  that 
we  may  meet  their  obligations  a  little 
at  a  time,  then  we  must  admit  failure 


44     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

and  try  again,  on  what  may  seem  a 
lower  plane.  That  is  what  I  consider 
the  brave  thing  to  do.  I  would  honor 
the  factory  superintendent,  who,  find- 
ing himself  unequal  to  his  position, 
should  choose  to  work  at  the  bench 
where  he  could  succeed  perfectly. 

The  habit  of  uncertainty  in  thought 
and  action,  bred,  as  it  sometimes  is, 
from  a  lack  of  faith  in  man  and  in  God, 
is,  nevertheless,  a  thing  to  be  dealt  with 
sometimes  by  itself.  Not  infrequently 
it  is  a  petty  habit  that  can  be  corrected 
by  the  exercise  of  a  little  will  power.  I 
believe  it  is  better  to  decide  wrong  a 
great  many  times  —  doing  it  quickly  — 
than  to  come  to  a  right  decision  after 
weakly  vacillating.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
we  may  trust  our  decisions  to  be  fair 
and  true  if  our  life's  ideals  are  beautiful 
and  true. 

We  may  improve  our  indecisions  a 
great  deal  by  mastering  their  unhappy 
details,  but  we  shall  not  finally  over- 
come them  until  life  rings  true  and  until 


RULES  OF  THE  GAME        45 

all  our  acts  and  thoughts  become  the' 
solid  and  inevitable  expression  of  a 
healthy  growing  regard  for  the  best  in 
life,  a  call  to  right  living  that  is  no  mean 
dictum  of  policy,  but  which  is  renewed 
every  morning  as  the  sun  comes  out  of 
the  sea.  However  inconsequential  the 
habit  of  indecision  may  seem,  it  is  really 
one  of  the  most  disabling  of  bad  habits. 
Its  continuance  contributes  largely  to 
the  sum  of  nervous  exhaustion.  What- 
ever its  origin,  whether  it  stands  in  the 
relation  of  cause  or  effect,  it  is  an  indul- 
gence that  insidiously  takes  the  snap 
and  sparkle  out  of  life  and  leaves  us  for 
the  time  being  colorless  and  weak. 

Next  to  uncertainty,  an  uninspired 
certainty  is  wrecking  to  the  best  of 
human  prospects.  The  man  whose  one 
idea  is  of  making  himself  and  his  fam- 
ily materially  comfortable,  or  even  rich, 
may  not  be  coming  to  nervous  prostra- 
tion, but  he  is  courting  a  moral  pros- 
tration that  will  deny  him  all  the  real 
riches  of  life  and  that  will  in  the  end 


46     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

reward  him  with  a  troubled  mind,  a 
great,  unsatisfied  longing,  unless,  to  be 
sure,  he  is  too  smug  and  satisfied  to  long 
for  anything. 

The  larger  life  leads  us  inevitably 
away  from  ourselves,  away  from  the 
super-requirements  of  our  families.  It 
demands  of  them  and  of  ourselves  an 
unselfishness  that  is  born  of  a  love  that 
finds  its  expression  in  the  service  of 
God.  And  what  is  the  service  of  God  if 
it  is  not  such  an  entering  into  the  divine 
purposes  and  spirit  that  we  become 
with  God  re-creators  in  the  world  — 
working  factors  in  the  higher  evolution 
of  humanity.^  While  we  live  we  shall 
get  and  save,  we  shall  use  and  spend, 
we  shall  serve  the  needs  of  those  de- 
pendent upon  us,  but  we  shall  not  line 
the  family  nest  so  softly  that  our  chil- 
dren become  powerless.  We  shall  not 
confine  our  charities  to  the  specified 
channels,  where  our  names  will  be 
praised  and  our  credit  increased.  We 
shall  give  and  serve  in  secret  places  with. 


RULES  OF  THE  GAME        47 

qur^heartsjn  our  deeds.  Then_we  may 
possess  the  untroubled  mincLaJ3:easure 
too  rich  to  be  computed.  We  shall  "not 
have  if  for  the  seeking;  it  may  exist  in 
the  midst  of  what  men  may  call  priva- 
tions and  sorrows;  but  it  will  exist  in  a 
very  large  sense  and  it  will  be  ours. 
The  so-called  hard-headed  business 
man  who  never  allows  himself  to  be 
taken  advantage  of,  whose  dealings  are 
always  strict  and  uncompromising,  is 
very  apt  to  be  a  particularly  miserable 
invalid  when  he  is  ill.  I  cannot  argue  in 
favor  of  business  laxity,  —  I  know  the 
imperative  need  of  exactness  and  final- 
ity, —  but  I  do  believe  that  if  we  are  to 
possess  the  untroubled  mind  we  must 
make  our  lives  larger  than  the  field_  of 
dollars  and  cents.  _The  charity  that 
develops  in  us  willjnalcejis  truly  gen- 
erous_and  free  from  the  reaction  of 
hardness. 

It  is  a  great  temptation  to  go  on  mul- 
tiplying the  rules  of  the  game.  There 
are   so  many   sensible  and  necessary 


48      THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

pieces  of  advice  which  we  all  need  to 
have  emphasized.  That  is  the  course 
we  must  try  to  avoid.  The  child  needs 
to  be  told,  arbitrarily  for  a  while,  what 
is  right,  and  what  is  wrong,  that  he 
must  do  this,  and  he  must  not  do  that. 
The  time  comes,  however,  when  the 
growing  instinct  toward  right  living  is 
the  thing  to  foster  —  not  the  details  of 
life  which  will  inevitably  take  care  of 
themselves  if  the  underlying  principle 
is  made  right.  It  must  be  the  ideal  of 
moral  teaching  to  make  clear  and  pure 
the  source  of  action.  Then  the  stream 
will  be  clear  and  pure.  Such  a  stream 
will  purify  itself  and  neutralize  the 
dangerous  inflow  along  its  banks.  It  is 
true  that  great  harm  may  come  from 
the  polluted  inflows,  but  they  will  be 
less  and  less  harmful  as  the  increasing 
current  from  the  good  source  flows 
down. 

We  shall  have  to  look  well  to  our 
habits  lest  serious  ills  befall,  but  that 
must  never  be  the  main  concern  or  we 


RULES  OF  THE  GAME         49 

shall  find  ourselves  living  very  narrow 
and  labored  lives;  we  shall  find  that  we 
are  failing  to  observe  one  of  the  most 
important  rules  of  the  game. 


VI 

THE  NERVOUS  TEMPERAMENT 

Beyond  the  ugly  actual,  lo,  on  every  side. 
Imagination's  limitless  domain. 

Browning. 

He  that  too  much  refines  his  delicacy  will  always 
endanger  his  quiet. 

Samuel  Johnson. 

The  great  refinement  of  many  poetical  gentlemen 
has  rendered  them  practically  unfit  for  the  jostling 
and  ugliness  of  life. 

Stevenson. 

It  has  been  my  fortune  as  a  physician 
to  deal  much  with  the  so-called  nervous 
temperament.  I  have  come  both  to 
fear  and  to  love  it.  It  is  the  essence  of 
all  that  is  bright,  imaginative,  and  fine, 
but  it  is  as  unstable  as  water.  Those 
who  possess  it  must  suffer  —  it  is  their 
lot  to  feel  deeply,  and  very  often  to  be 
misunderstood  by  their  more  practical 
friends.  All  their  lives  these  people  will 
shed  tears  of  joy,  and  more  tears  of  sor- 
row. I  would  like  to  write  of  their  joy, 


THE  NERVOUS  TEMPERAMENT  51 

of  the  perfect  satisfaction,  the  true  hap- 
piness that  comes  in  creating  new  and 
beautiful  things,  of  the  deep  pleasure 
they  have  in  the  appreciation  of  good 
work  in  others.  But  with  the  instinct 
of  a  dog  trained  for  a  certain  kind  of 
hunting  I  find  myself  turning  to  the 
misfortunes  and  the  ills.  "^ 

The  very  keenness  of  perception 
makes  painful  anything  short  of  per- 
fection. What  will  such  people  do  in 
our  clanging  streets.'^  What  of  those 
fine  ears  tuned  to  the  most  exquisite 
appreciation  of  sweet  sound. ^^  What  of 
that  refinement  of  hearing  that  detects 
the  least  departure  from  the  rhythm 
and  pitch  in  complex  orchestral  music? 
And  must  they  bear  the  crash  of  steel 
on  stone,  the  infernal  clatter  of  traffic? 
Well,  yes,  —  as  a  matter  of  fact  —  they 
must,  at  least  for  a  good  many  years  to 
come,  until  advancing  civilization  elim- 
inates the  city  noise.  But  it  is  not  al- 
ways the  great  noises  that  disturb  and 
distract.    There  is  a  story  told  of  a 


52     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

woman  who  became  so  sensitive  to 
noise  that  she  had  her  house  made 
sound-proof:  there  were  thick  carpets 
and  softly  closing  doors;  everything 
was  padded.  The  house  was  set  back 
from  a  quiet  street,  but  that  street  was 
strewn  with  tanbark  to  check  the  sound 
of  carriages.  Surely  here  was  bliss  for 
the  sensitive  soul.  I  need  not  tell  the 
rest  of  the  story,  how  absolutely  neces- 
sary noises  became  intolerable,  and  the 
poor  woman  ended  by  keeping  a  man 
on  the  place  to  catch  and  silence  the 
tree  toads  and  crickets. 

There  is  nothing  to  excuse  the  care- 
less and  unnecessary  noises  of  the  world 
—  we  shall  dispose  of  them  finally  as 
we  are  disposing  of  flamboyant  sign- 
boards and  typhoid  flies.  But  mean- 
while, and  always,  for  that  matter,  the 
sensitive  soul  must  learn  to  adjust  itself 
to  circumstances  and  conditions.  This 
adjustment  may  in  itself  become  a  fine 
art.  It  is  really  the  art  by  which  the 
painter  excludes  the  commonplace  and 


THE  NERVOUS  TEMPERAMENT  53 

irrelevant  from  his  landscape.  Some- 
times we  have  to  do  this  consciously; 
for  the  most  part,  it  should  be  a  natural, 
unconscious  selection. 

I  am  sure  it  is  unwise  to  attempt  at 
any  time  the  dulling  of  the  appreciative 
sense  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  comfort. 
Love  and  understanding  of  the  beauti- 
ful and  true  is  too  rare  and  fine  a  thing 
to  be  lost  or  diminished  under  any  cir- 
cumstances. The  cure,  as  I  see  it,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  cultivation  of  the  fac- 
ulty that  finds  snoie  good  in  everything 
and  everybody.  This  is  the  saving  grace 
—  it  takes  great  bulks  of  the  common- 
place and  distils  from  the  mass  a  few 
drops  of  precious  essence;  it  finds  in  the 
unscholarly  and  the  imperfect,  rare 
traces  of  good;  it  sees  in  man,  any  man, 
the  image  of  God,  to  be  justified  and 
made  evident  only  in  the  sublimity  of 
death,  perhaps,  but  usually  to  be  devel- 
oped in  life. 

The  nervous  person  is  often  moroge 
and  unsocial — perhaps  because  he  is  not 


54     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

understood,  perhaps  because  he  falls  so 
short  of  his  own  ideals .  Often  he  does  not 
find  kindred  spirits  anywhere.  I  do  not 
think  we  should  drive  such  a  man  into 
conditions  that  hurt,  but  I  do  believe 
that  if  he  is  truly  artistic,  and  not  a 
snob,  he  may  lead  himself  into  a  larger 
social  life  without  too  much  sacrifice. 

The  sensitive,  high-strung  spirit  that 
does  not  give  of  its  own  best  qualities 
to  the  world  of  its  acquaintance,  that 
does  not  express  itself  in  some  concrete 
way,  is  always  in  danger  of  harm.  Such 
a  spirit  turned  in  upon  itself  is  a  con- 
suming fire.  The  spirit  will  burn  a  long 
time  and  suffer  much  if  it  does  not  use 
its  heat  to  warm  and  comfort  the  world 
of  need. 

Real  illness  makes  the  nervous  tem- 
perament a  much  more  formidable  diflS- 
culty  —  all  the  sensitive  faculties  are 
more  sensitive  —  irritability  becomes 
an  obsession  and  idleness  a  terror. 

The  nervous  temperament  under  irri- 
tation is  very  prone  to  become  selfish — 


THE  NERVOUS  TEMPERAMENT  55 

and  very  likely  to  hide  behind  this  self- 
ishness, calling  it  temperament.  The  man 
who  flies  into  a  passion  when  he  is  dis- 
turbed, or  who  spends  his  days  in  tor- 
ment from  the  noises  of  the  street;  the 
woman  of  high  attainment  who  has  re- 
tired into  herself,  who  is  moody  and  un- 
responsive, —  these  unfortunates  have 
virtually  built  a  wall  about  their  lives, 
a  wall  which  shuts  out  the  world  of 
life  and  happiness.  From  the  walls  of 
this  prison  the  sounds  of  discord  and 
annoyance  are  thrown  back  upon  the 
prisoner  intensified  and  multiplied. 
The  wall  is  real  enough  in  its  effect,  but 
will  cease  to  exist  when  the  prisoner 
begins  to  go  outside,  when  he  begins  to 
realize  his  selfishness  and  his  mistake. 
Then  the  noises  and  the  irritations  will 
be  lost  in  the  wider  world  that  is  open 
to  him.  After  all,  it  is  only  through  un- 
selfish service  in  the  world  of  men  that 
this  broadening  can  come. 

There  is  no  lack  of  opportunity  for 
service.  Perhaps  the  simplest  and  most 


5Q     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

available  form  of  service  is  charity,  — 
the  big,  professional  kind,  of  course, 
—  and  beyond  that  the  greater  field  of 
intimate  and  personal  charity.  I  know 
a  girl  of  talent  and  ability  —  herself  a 
nervous  invalid  —  sick  and  helpless  for 
the  lack  of  a  little  money  which  would 
give  her  a  chance  to  get  well.  I  do  not 
mean  money  for  luxuries,  for  foolish 
indulgences,  but  money  to  buy  oppor- 
tunity —  money  that  would  lift  her  out 
of  the  heavy  morass  of  poverty  and 
give  her  a  chance.  She  falls  outside  the 
beaten  path  of  charity.  She  is  not 
reached  by  the  usual  philanthropies. 
I  also  know  plenty  of  people  who  could 
help  that  girl  without  great  sacrifice. 
They  will  not  do  it  because  they  give 
money  to  the  regular  charities  —  they 
will  not  do  it  because  sometimes  generos- 
ity has  been  abused.  So  they  miss  the 
chance  of  broadening  and  developing 
their  own  lives. 

I  know  well  enough  that  objective 
interest  can  rarely  be  forced  —  it  must 


THE  NERVOUS  TEMPERAMENT  57 

usually  come  the  other  way  about  — 
through  the  broadening  of  life  which 
makes  it  inevitable.  Sometimes  I  wish 
I  could  force  that  kind  of  development, 
that  kind  of  charity.  Sometimes  I  long 
to  take  the  rich  neurasthenic  and  make 
him  help  his  brother,  make  him  develop 
a  new  art  that  shall  save  people  from 
sorrow  and  loss.  We  are  all  together  in 
this  world,  and  all  kin;  to  recognize  it 
and  to  serve  the  needs  of  the  unfortu- 
nate as  we  would  serve  our  own  chil- 
dren is  the  remedy  for  many  ills.  It  is 
the  new  art,  the  final  and  greatest  of  all 
artistic  achievements;  it  warms  our 
hearts  and  opens  our  lives  to  all  that  is 
wholesome  and  good.  This  is  one  of  the 
crises  in  which  my  theory  of  "inspira- 
tion first"  may  fail.  Here  the  charity 
may  have  to  come  first,  may  have  to  be 
insisted  upon  before  there  can  be  any 
inspiration  or  any  further  joy  in  life. 
It  is  not  always  charity  in  the  usual 
sense  that  is  required;  sometimes  the 
charity  that  gives  something  besides 


58     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

money  is  best.  But  charity  in  any  good 
sense  means  self-forgetfulness,  and  that 
is  a  long  way  on  the  road  to  nervous 
health.  Give  of  yourself,  give  of  your 
substance,  and  you  will  cease  to  be 
troubled  with  the  penalties  of  selfish- 
ness. Then  take  the  next  step  —  that 
gives  not  because  life  has  come  back, 
but  because  the  world  has  become  larger 
and  warmer  and  happier.  When  the 
giver  gives  of  his  sympathy  and  of  his 
means  because  he  wants  to,  —  not  be- 
cause he  has  to  do  so,  —  he  will  begin 
to  know  what  I  mean  when  I  say  it  is 
better  to  have  the  inspiration  first. 


VII 

SELF-CONTROL 

He  only  earns  his  freedom  and  existence 
Who  daily  conquers  them  anew. 

Goethe. 

A  GOOD  many  writers  on  self-control 
and  kindred  subjects  insist  that  we  shall 
conscientiously  and  consciously  govern 
our  mental  lives.  They  say,  "You  must 
get  up  in  the  morning  with  determina- 
tion to  be  cheerful."  They  insist  that 
in  spite  of  annoyance  or  trouble  you 
shall  keep  a  smiling  face,  and  affirm  to 
yourself  over  and  over  again  the  denial 
of  annoyance. 

I  do  not  like  this  kind  of  self-control. 
I  wish  I  could  admire  it  and  approve  it, 
but  I  find  I  cannot  because  it  seems  to 
me  self-conscious  and  superficial.  It  is 
better  than  nothing  and  unquestion- 
ably adds  greatly  to  the  sum  of  human 
happiness.  But  I  do  not  think  we  ought 
to  be  cheerful  if  we  are  consumed  with 


60     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

trouble  and  sorrow.  The  fact  is  we 
ought  not  to  be  for  long  beyond  a  natu- 
ral cheerfulness  that  comes  from  the 
deepest  possible  sources.  While  we  are 
sad,  let  us  be  so,  simply  and  naturally; 
but  we  must  pray  that  the  light  may 
come  to  us  in  our  sorrow,  that  we  may 
be  able  soon  and  naturally  to  put  aside 
the  signs  of  mourning. 

The  person  who  thinks  little  of  his 
own  attitude  of  mind  is  more  likely  to 
be  well  controlled  and  to  radiate  happi- 
ness than  one  who  must  continually 
prompt  himself  to  worthy  thoughts. 
The  man  whose  heart  is  great  with 
understanding  of  the  sorrow  and  pathos 
of  life  is  far  more  apt  to  be  brave  and 
fine  in  his  own  trouble  than  one  who 
must  look  to  a  motto  or  a  formula  for 
consolation  and  advice.  Deep  in  the 
lives  of  those  who  permanently  triumph 
over  sorrow  there  is  an  abiding  peace 
and  joy.  Such  peace  cannot  come  even 
from  ample  experience  in  the  material 
world.  Despair  comes  from  that  experi- 


SELF-CONTROL  61 

ence  sometimes,  unless  the  heart  is  open 
to  the  vital  spirit  that  lies  beyond  all 
material  things,  that  creates  and  renews 
life  and  that  makes  it  indescribably 
beautiful  and  significant.  Experience 
of  material  things  is  only  the  beginning. 
In  it  and  through  it  we  may  have  experi- 
ence of  the  wider  life  that  surrounds  the 
material. 

Our  hearts  must  be  opened  to  the 
courage  that  comes  unbidden  when  we 
feel  ourselves  to  be  working,  growing 
parts  of  the  universe  of  God.  Then  we 
shall  have  no  more  sorrow  and  no  more 
joy  in  the  pitiful  sense  of  the  earth,  but 
rather  an  exaltation  which  shall  make 
us  masters  of  these  and  of  ourselves. 
We  shall  have  a  sympathy  and  charity 
that  shall  need  no  promptings,  but  that 
flow  from  us  spontaneously  into  the 
world  of  suffering  and  need. 

Beethoven  was  of  a  sour  temper,  ac- 
cording to  all  accounts,  but  he  wrote 
his  symphonies  in  the  midst  of  tribula- 
tions under  which  few  men  would  have 


62     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

worked  at  all.  When  we  have  felt  some- 
thing of  the  spirit  that  makes  work  in- 
evitable, it  will  be  as  though  we  had 
heard  the  eternal  harmonies.  We  shall 
write  our  symphonies,  build  our  bridges, 
or  do  our  lesser  tasks  with  dauntless 
purpose,  even  though  the  possessions 
that  men  count  dear  are  taken  from  us. 
Suppose  we  can  do  very  little  because 
of  some  infirmity :  if  that  little  has  in  it 
the  larger  inspiration,  it  will  be  enough 
to  make  life  full  and  fine.  The  joy  of  a 
wider  life  is  not  obtainable  in  its  com- 
pleteness; it  is  only  through  a  lifetime 
of  service  and  experience  that  we  can 
approach  it.  That  is  the  proof  of  its 
divine  origin  —  its  unattainableness. 
"God  keep  you  from  the  she  wolf  and 
from  your  heart's  deepest  desire,"  is  an 
old  saying  of  the  Rumanians.  If  we 
fully  obtain  our  desires,  we  prove  their 
un worthiness.  Does  any  one  suppose 
that  Beethoven  attained  his  whole 
heart's  desire  in  his  music?  He  might 
have  done  so  had  be  been  a  lesser  man. 


SELF-CONTROL  63 

He  was  not  a  cheerful  companion.  That 
is  unfortunate,  and  shows  that  he  failed 
in  complete  inspiration  and  in  the  ordin- 
ary kind  of  self-control.  He  was  at  least 
sincere,  and  that  helped  not  a  little  to 
make  him  what  he  was.  I  would  almost 
rather  a  man  would  be  morose  and  sin- 
cere than  cheerful  from  a  sense  of  duty. 
Our  knowledge  of  the  greater  things 
of  life  must  always  be  substantiated 
and  worked  out  into  realities  of  service, 
or  else  we  shall  be  weak  and  ineffective. 
The  charity  that  balks  at  giving,  reacts 
upon  a  man  and  deadens  him.  I  am, 
always  insisting  that  we  must  not  live| 
and  serve  through  a  sense  of  duty,  but 
that  we  must  find  the  inspiration  first. 
It  is  better  to  give  ourselves  to  service 
not  for  the  sake  of  finding  God,  but  be- 
cause we  have  found  Him  and  because 
our  souls  have  grown  in  the  finding  un- 
til we  cannot  help  giving.  If  we  have 
grown  to  such  a  stature  we  shall  be  able 
to  meet  sorrow  and  loss  bravely  and 
simply.  We  shall  feel  for  ourselves  and 


64     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

for  others  in  their  troubles  as  Forbes 
Robertson  did  when  he  wrote  to  his 
friend  who  had  met  with  a  great  loss: 
"I  pray  that  you  may  never,  never, 
never  get  over  this  sorrow,  but  through 
it,  into  it,  into  the  very  heart  of  God." 
All  this  is  very  unworldly,  no  doubt, 
and  yet  I  will  venture  the  assertion  that 
such  a  standard  and  such  a  method  will 
come  nearer  to  the  mark  of  successful 
and  well-controlled  living  than  the  most 
carefully  planned  campaign  of  duty. 
If  we  plan  to  make  life  fine,  if  we  say, 
in  effect,  "I  will  be  good  and  cheerful, 
no  matter  what  happens,"  we  are  be- 
ginning at  the  wrong  end.  We  may  be 
able  to  work  back  from  our  mottoes  to 
real  living,  but  the  chances  are  we  shall 
stop  somewhere  by  the  way,  too  con- 
fused and  uncertain  to  go  on.  Self-con- 
trol, at  its  best,  is  not  a  conscious  thing. 
It  is  not  well  that  we  should  try  to  be 
good,  but  that  we  should  so  dignify  our 
lives  with  the  spirit  of  good  that  evil 
becomes  well-nigh  impossible  to  us. 


VIII 

THE  LIGHTER  TOUCH 

Heart  not  so  heavy  as  mine. 
Wending  late  home. 
As  it  passed  my  window 
Whistled  itself  a  tune, 

Emily  Dickinson. 

I  HAVE  never  seen  good  come  from 
frightening  worriers.  It  is  no  doubt 
wise  to  speak  the  truth,  but  it  seems  to 
me  a  mistake. to  say  in  public  print  or 
in  private  advice  that  worry  leads  to 
tragedies  of  the  worst  sort.  No  matter 
how  hopeful  we  may  be  in  our  later 
teaching  about  the  possibilities  of  over- 
coming worry,  the  really  serious  worrier 
will  pounce  upon  the  original  tragic 
statement  and  apply  it  with  terrible 
insistence  to  his  own  case. 

I  would  not  minimize  the  seriousness 
of  worry,  but  I  am  convinced  that  we 
can  rarely  overcome  it  by  direct  volun- 
tary effort.  It  does  not  go  until  we  for- 


66     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

get  it,  and  we  do  not  forget  it  if  we  are 
always  trying  consciously  to  overcome 
it.  We  worriers  must  go  about  our 
business  —  other  business  than  that  of 
worry. 

life  is  serious  —  alas,  too  serious  — 
and  full  enough  of  pathos.  We  cannot 
joke  about  its  troubles;  they  are  real.' 
But,  at  least,  we  need  not  magnify  them. 
Why  should  we  act  as  though  every- 
thing depended  upon  our  efforts,  even 
the  changing  seasons  and  the  blowing 
winds.  No  doubt  we  are  responsible 
for  our  own  acts  and  thoughts  and  for 
the  welfare  of  those  who  depend  upon 
us.  The  trouble  is  we  take  unnecessary 
responsibilities  so  seriously  that  we 
overreach  ourselves  and  defeat  our  own 
good  ends. 

I  would  make  my  little  world  more 
blessedly  careless  —  with  an  abandon 
that  loves  life  too  much  to  spoil  it  with 
worry.  I  would  cherish  so  great  a  desire 
for  my  child's  good  that  I  could  not 
scold  and  bear  down  upon  him  for  every 


THE  LIGHTER  TOUCH        67 

little  fault,  making  him  a  worrier  too, 
but,  instead,  I  would  guide  him  along 
the  right  path  with  pleasant  words  and 
brave  encouragement.  The  condemna- 
tion of  faults  is  rarely  constructive. 

We  had  better  say  to  the  worriers, 
**Here  is  life;  no  matter  what  unfortu- 
nate things  you  may  have  said  or  done, 
you  must  put  all  evil  behind  you  and 
live  —  simply,  bravely,  well.  The 
greater  the  evil,  the  greater  the  need  of 
forgetting.  Not  flippantly,  but  rever- 
ently, leave  your  misdeeds  in  a  limbo 
where  they  may  not  rise  to  haunt  you. 
This  great  thing  you  may  do,  not  with 
the  idea  of  evading  or  escaping  conse- 
quences, but  so  that  past  evil  may  be 
turned  into  present  and  future  good. 
The  criminal  himself  is  coming  to  be 
treated  this  way.  He  is  no  longer  eter- 
nally reminded  of  his  crime.  He  is 
taken  out  into  the  sunshine  and  air  and 
is  given  a  shovel  to  dig  with.  A  wonder- 
ful thing  is  that  shovel.  With  it  he  may 
bury  the  past  and  raise  up  a  happier, 


68     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

better  future.  We  must  care  so  much 
to  expiate  our  sins  that  we  are  wiUing 
to  neglect  them  and  live  righteously. 
That  is  true  repentance,  constructive 
repentance. 

We  cannot  suddenly  change  our  men- 
tal outlook  and  become  happy  when 
grief  has  borne  us  down.  "For  the 
broken  heart  silence  and  shade,"  — 
that  is  fair  and  right.  I  would  say  to 
those  who  are  unhappy,  "Do  not  try 
to  be  happy,  you  cannot  force  it;  but 
let  peace  come  to  you  out  of  the  great 
world  of  beauty  that  calmly  surrounds 
our  human  suffering,  and  that  speaks 
to  us  quietly  of  God."  Genuine  laugh- 
ter is  not  forced,  but  we  may  let  it  come 
back  into  our  lives  if  we  know  that  it  is 
right  for  it  to  come. 

We  have  all  about  us  instances  of  the 
effectiveness  of  the  lighter  touch  as 
applied  to  serious  matters.  The  life  of 
the  busy  surgeon  is  a  good  example. 
He  may  be,  and  usually  is,  brimming 
with  sympathy,  but  if  he  were  to  feel 


THE  LIGHTER  TOUCH        69 

too  deeply  for  all  his  patients,  he  would 
soon  fail  and  die.  He  goes  about  his 
work.  He  puts  through  a  half-dozen 
operations  in  a  way  that  would  send 
cold  shivers  down  the  back  of  the  unin- 
itiated. And  yet  he  is  accurate  and  sure 
as  a  machine.  If  he  were  to  take  each 
case  upon  his  mind  in  a  heavy,  conse- 
quential way,  if  he  were  to  give  deep 
concern  to  each  ligature  he  ties,  and  if 
he  were  to  be  constantly  afraid  of  caus- 
ing pain,  he  would  be  a  poor  surgeon. 
His  work,  instead  of  being  clean  and 
sharp,  would  suffer  from  over-conscien- 
tiousness. He  might  never  finish  an 
operation  for  fear  his  patient  would 
bleed  to  death.  Such  a  man  may  be  the 
reverse  of  flippant,  and  yet  he  may  ac- 
tually enjoy  his  somber  work.  Cruel, 
bloodthirsty?  Not  at  all.  These  men  — 
the  great  surgeons  —  are  as  tender  as 
children.  But  they  love  their  work,  they 
really  care  very  deeply  for  their  patients. 
The  successful  ones  have  the  lighter 
touch  and  they  have  no  time  for  worry. 


70     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

Sometimes  we  wish  to  arouse  the 
public  conscience.  Do  the  long  columns 
of  figures,  the  impressive  statistics, 
wake  men  to  activity?  It  is  rather  the 
keen,  bright  thrust  of  the  satirist  that 
saves  the  day.  Once  in  a  New  England 
town  meeting  there  was  a  movement 
for  a  much-needed  new  schoolhouse. 
By  the  installation  of  skylights  in  the 
attic  the  old  building  had  been  made  to 
accommodate  the  overflow  of  pupils. 
The  serious  speakers  in  favor  of  the  new 
building  had  left  the  audience  cold, 
when  a  young  man  arose  and  said  he 
had  been  up  into  the  attic  and  had  seen 
the  wonderful  skylights  that  were  sup- 
posed to  meet  the  needs  of  the  children. 
"I  have  seen  them,"  he  said;  "we  used 
to  call  them  scuttles  when  I  was  a  boy." 
A  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  voted 
for  the  new  schoolhouse. 

There  is  a  natural  gayety  in  most  of 
us  which  helps  more  than  we  realize  to 
keep  us  sound.  The  pity  is  that  when 
responsibilities    come    and    hardships 


THE  LIGHTER  TOUCH        71 

come,  we  repress  our  lighter  selves 
sternly,  as  though  such  repression  were 
a  duty.  Better  let  us  guard  the  springs 
of  happiness  very,  very  jealously.  The 
whistling  boy  in  the  dark  street  does 
more  than  cheer  himself  on  the  way. 
He  actually  protects  himself  from  evil, 
and  brings  courage  not  only  to  himself, 
but  to  those  who  hear  him.  I  do  not 
hold  for  false  cheerfulness  that  is  some- 
times affected,  but  a  brave  show  of 
courage  in  a  forlorn  hope  will  some- 
times win  the  day.  It  is  infinitely  more 
likely  to  win  than  a  too  serious  realiza- 
tion of  the  danger  of  defeat.  The  show 
of  courage  is  often  not  a  pretense  at  all, 
but  victory  itself. 

The  need  of  the  world  is  very  great 
and  its  human  destiny  is  in  our  hands. 
Half  of  those  who  could  help  to  right 
the  wrongs  are  asleep  or  too  selfishly 
immersed  in  their  own  affairs.  We  need 
more  helpers  like  my  friend  of  the  sky- 
lights. Most  of  us  are  far  too  serious. 
The  slumberers  will  slumber  on,  and 


72     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

the  worriers  will  worry,  the  serious 
people  will  go  ponderously  about  until 
some  one  shows  them  how  ridiculous 
they  are  and  how  pitiful. 


IX 

REGRETS  AND  FOREBODINGS 

Regret  avails  little  —  still  less  remorse  —  the  one 
keeps  alive  the  old  offense,  the  other  creates  new 
offenses. 

Goethe. 

The  unrepentant  sinner  walks  abroad. 
Unfortunately  for  us  moralists  he  seems 
to  be  having  a  very  good  time.  We 
must  not  condone  him,  though  he  may 
be  a  very  lovable  person;  neither  must 
we  altogether  condemn  him,  for  he  may 
be  repentant  in  the  very  best  way  of  all 
ways,  the  way  that  forgets  much  and 
leaves  behind  more,  because  life  is  so 
fine  that  it  must  not  be  spoiled,  and 
because  progress  is  in  every  way  better 
than  retrospection.  The  fact  is,  that 
repentance  is  too  often  the  fear  of  pun- 
ishment, and  such  fear  is,  to  say  the 
least,  unmanly.  I  would  rather  be  a 
lovable  sinner  than  one  of  the  people 
who  repent  because  they  cannot  bear 


74     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

to  think  of  the  consequences.  Know- 
ledge and  fear  of  consequences  undoubt- 
edly keep  a  great  many  young  people 
from  the  so-called  sins  of  ignorance. 
But  there  must  be  something  behind 
knowledge  and  fear  of  consequences  to 
stop  the  youth  of  spirit  from  doing  what 
he  is  inclined  to  do.  Over  and  over 
again  we  must  go  back  to  the  apprecia- 
tion of  life's  dignity  and  beauty  —  to 
the  consciousness  of  the  spirit  of  God 
behind  and  in  the  world  if  we  are  to 
find  a  balance  and  a  character  that  will 
"deliver  us  from  evil." 

When  we  have  found  this  conscious- 
ness —  when  we  live  it  and  breathe  it, 
we  shall  be  far  less  apt  to  sin,  and  when 
we  have  sinned,  as  we  all  must  in  the 
course  of  our  blundering  lives,  we  shall 
not  waste  our  time  in  regret  or  in  the 
fear  of  consequences.  If  the  God  we 
dream  of  is  as  great  as  the  sea,  or  as 
beautiful  as  a  tree,  we  need  not  fear 
Him.  He  will  be  tender,  and  just  at  the 
same  time.   He  will  be  as  forgiving  as 


REGRETS  AND  FOREBODINGS    75 

He  is  strong.  The  best  we  can  do,  then, 
is  to  leave  our  sins  in  the  hand  of  God 
and  go  our  way,  sadder  and  wiser, 
maybe,  but  not  regretting  too  much, 
not  fearing  any  more. 

There  is  a  new  idea  in  medicine  — 
the  development  of  which  has  been  one 
of  the  most  striking  achievements  of 
modern  times  —  the  idea  of  psychan- 
alysis  as  taught  and  advocated  by 
Freud  in  Germany.  The  plan  is  to 
study  the  subconscious  mind  of  the 
nervous  patient  by  means  of  hypno- 
tism, to  assist  the  patient  to  recall  all 
the  mental  experiences  of  his  past,  — 
even  his  very  early  childhood,  —  and  in 
this  way  to  make  clear  the  origin  of  the 
misconceptions  and  the  unfortunate 
impressions  which  have  presumably 
exerted  their  influence  through  the 
years.  The  new  system  includes,  also, 
the  interpretation  of  dreams,  their 
effect  upon  the  conscious  life  and  their 
influence  upon  the  mentality.  Very 
wonderful  results  are  reported  from  the 


76     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

pursuit  of  this  method.  Many  a  badly 
warped  and  twisted  life  has  been 
straightened  out  and  renewed  when  the 
searchlight  has  revealed  the  hidden 
influences  that  have  been  at  work  and 
which  have  made  trouble.  The  repres- 
sion of  conscious  or  unconscious  feel-' 
ings  can  no  doubt  change  the  whole 
mental  life.  We  should  have  the  great- 
est respect  for  the  men  who  are  doing 
this  work.  It  requires,  I  am  told,  an 
almost  unbelievable  amount  of  patience 
and  time  to  accomplish  the  analysis. 
No  doubt  the  adult  judgment  of  child- 
ish follies  is  a  direct  means  of  disposing 
of  their  harmful  influence  in  life,  the 
surest  way  of  losing  the  conscious  or 
unconscious  regrets  that  sadden  many 
lives.  There  are  probably  many  cases 
of  disturbed  and  troubled  mind  that  can 
be  cured  in  this  way  only.  The  method 
does  not  appeal  to  me  because  I  am  so 
strongly  inclined  to  take  people  as  they 
are,  to  urge  a  forgetfulness  that  does 
not  really  forget,  but  which  goes  on 


REGRETS  AND  FOREBODINGS    77 

bravely  to  the  development  of  life. 
This  development  cannot  proceed  with- 
out the  understanding  that  life  may  be 
made  so  beautiful  that  sins  and  failures 
are  lost  in  progress.  Some  of  us  may 
need  the  subtle  analysis  of  our  lives  to 
make  clear  the  points  where  we  went 
astray  in  our  thoughts  and  ideas,  but 
many  of  us,  fortunately,  are  able  to 
take  ourselves  for  better  or  for  worse, 
sins  and  all.  Most  of  us  ought  to  do 
that,  for  the  most  part,  if  we  are  to 
progress  and  live.  Sometimes  the  reve- 
lations of  evils  we  know  not  of  result  in 
complications  rather  than  simplifica- 
tion, as  in  the  case  of  a  boy  who  wrote 
to  me  and  said  that  since  he  had  learned 
of  his  early  sins  he  had  made  sure  that 
he  could  never  be  well.  Instead  of  going 
into  further  analysis  with  him,  I  as- 
sured him  that,  while  it  was  undoubt- 
edly his  duty  to  regret  all  the  evil  of 
his  life,  it  was  a  still  greater  duty  to 
go  on  and  live  the  rest  of  it  well,  and 
that  he  could  do  so  if  he  would  open 


78     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

his  eyes  to  the  possibiHties  of  unselfish 
service. 

I  am  very  much  inclined  to  preach 
against  self-analysis  and  the  almost 
inevitable  regret  and  despair  that  ac- 
company it. 

One  of  my  patients  decided  some  time 
ago  that  her  life  was  wasted,  that  she 
had  accomplished  nothing.  It  was  true 
that  she  had  not  the  endurance  to  meet 
the  usual  demands  of  social  or  even 
family  life,  and  that  for  long  periods 
she  had  to  give  up  altogether.  But  it 
happened  that  she  had  the  gift  of  mu- 
sical understanding,  that  she  had  stud- 
ied hard  in  younger  days.  With  a  little 
urging  the  gift  was  made  to  grow  again 
and  to  serve  not  only  the  patient's  own 
needs,  but  to  bring  very  great  pleasure 
to  every  one  who  listened  to  her  play- 
ing. That  rare,  true  ability  was  worth 
everything,  and  she  came  to  realize  it 
in  time.  The  gift  of  musical  expression 
is  a  very  great  thing,  and  I  succeeded 
in  making  this  woman  understand  that 


REGRETS  AND  FOREBODINGS    79 

she  should  be  happy  in  that  ability  even 
if  nothing  else  should  be  possible. 

Often  enough  nothing  that  can  com- 
pare with  music  exists,  and  life  seems 
wholly  barren.  Rather  cold  comfort  it 
seems  at  first  to  assure  a  person  who  is 
helpless  that  character  is  the  greatest 
thing  in  the  world,  but  that  is  the  final 
truth.  The  most  limited  and  helpless 
life  may  glow  with  it  and  be  richer  than 
imagination  can  believe.  It  is  never 
time  to  regret  —  and  never  time  to 
despair.  The  less  analysis  the  better. 
When  it  comes  to  character,  live,  grow, 
and  get  a  deeper  and  deeper  understand- 
ing of  life  —  of  life  that  is  near  to  God 
and  so  capable  of  wrong  only  as  we  turn 
away  from  Him.  "Do  not  say  things; 
what  you  are  stands  over  you  and  thun- 
ders so,  I  cannot  hear  what  you  say  to 
the  contrary."  We  shall  do  well  not  to 
forget  that,  whatever  failures  or  mis- 
takes we  have  made,  there  is  infinite 
possibility  ahead  of  us,  that  character 
is  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world,  and 


80     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

that  most  good  character  has  been 
built  upon  mistakes  and  failures.  I 
believe  there  is  no  sin  which  may  not 
make  up  the  fabric  of  its  own  forgive- 
ness in  the  living  of  a  free,  self-sacrific- 
ing life.  I  know  of  no  bodily  ill  nor 
handicap  which  we  may  not  eventually 
rise  above  and  beyond  by  means  of 
brave  spiritual  progress.  The  body 
may  fail  us,  but  the  spirit  reaches  on 
and  into  the  great  world  of  God. 


THE  VIRTUES 

The  virtues  hide  their  vanquished  fires 
Within  that  whiter  flame  — 
Till  conscience  grows  irrelevant 
And  duty  but  a  name, 

Frederick  Lawrence  Knowles. 

In  most  books  I  have  read  on  "nerves" 
and  similar  subjects,  advice  is  given, 
encouragement  is  given,  but  the  neces- 
sity for  patience  is  not  made  clear.  Pa- 
tience is  typical  of  all  the  other  virtues. 
Many  a  man  has  followed  the  best  of 
advice  for  a  time,  and  has  become  dis- 
couraged because  the  promised  results 
did  not  materialize.  It  is  disappointing, 
surely,  to  have  lived  upon  a  diet  for 
months  only  to  find  that  you  still  have 
dyspepsia,  or  to  have  followed  certain 
rules  of  morality  with  great  precision 
and  enthusiasm  without  obtaining  the 
untroubled  mind.  We  are  accustomed 
to  see  results  in  the  material  world  and 


82     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

naturally  expect  them  everywhere. 
The  trouble  is  we  do  not  always  recog- 
nize improvements  when  we  see  them, 
and  we  insist  upon  certain  preconceived 
changes  as  a  result  of  our  endeavors. 
The  physician  is  apt  rashly  to  promise 
definite  physical  accomplishments  in  a 
given  time.  He  is  courting  disappoint- 
ment and  distrust  when  he  does  so. 
We  all  want  to  get  relief  from  our  symp- 
toms, and  we  are  inclined  to  insist  upon 
a  particular  kind  of  relief  so  strongly 
that  we  fail  to  appreciate  the  possibili- 
ties of  another  and  a  better  relief  which 
may  be  at  hand.  The  going  astray  in 
this  particular  is  sometimes  very  un- 
fortunate. I  have  known  a  man  to  rush 
frantically  from  one  doctor  to  another, 
trying  to  obtain  relief  for  a  particular 
pain  or  discomfort,  unwilling  to  rest 
long  enough  to  find  out  that  the  trouble 
would  have  disappeared  naturally  if  he 
had  taken  the  advice  of  the  first  physi- 
cian, to  live  without  impatience  and 
within  his  limitations. 


THE  VIRTUES  83 

The  human  body  is  a  very  complex 
organism,  and  sometimes  pain  and  dis- 
tress are  better  not  relieved,  since  they 
may  be  the  expression  of  some  deeper 
maladjustment  which  must  first  be 
straightened  out.  This  is  also  true  of 
the  mind  —  in  which  the  unhappy 
proddings  of  conscience  had  better  not 
be  cured  by  anodynes  or  by  evasion  un- 
less we  are  prepared  to  go  deeply 
enough  to  make  them  disappear  spon- 
taneously. We  must  sometimes  insist 
upon  patience,  though  it  should  exist 
as  a  matter  of  course  —  patience  with 
ourselves  and  with  others.  The  physi- 
cian who  demands  and  secures  the 
greatest  degree  of  patience  from  his 
clients  is  the  most  successful  practi- 
tioner, for  no  life  can  go  on  successfully 
without  patience.  If  patience  can  be 
spontaneous,  —  the  natural  result  of  a 
broadening  outlook,  —  then  it  will  be 
permanent  and  serviceable;  the  other 
kind,  that  exists  by  extreme  effort,  may 
do  for  a  while,  but  it  is  a  poor  makeshift. 


84     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

I  always  feel  like  apologizing  when  I 
ask  a  man  or  a  woman  to  be  tolerant  or 
charitable  or  generous  or,  for  that  mat- 
ter, to  practice  any  of  the  ordinary  vir- 
tues. Sound  living  should  spring  un- 
bidden from  the  very  joy  of  life;  it 
should  need  no  justification  and  cer- 
tainly no  urging.  But  unfortunately, 
as  the  world  now  stands,  there  are  men 
and  groups  of  men  who  do  not  see  the 
light.  There  is  a  wide  contagion  of  self- 
ishness and  short-sightedness  among 
the  well-to-do,  and  a  necessary  federa- 
tion of  protection  and  selfishness  among 
the  poor.  The  practical  needs  of  life, 
artificial  as  they  are  among  the  rich,  and 
terribly  insistent  as  they  are  among  the 
poor,  blind  us  to  larger  considerations. 

If  all  matters  of  welfare,  public  or 
private,  could  be  treated  unselfishly, 
how  quickly  we  should  be  rid  of  some  of 
the  great  evils  that  afflict  the  race.  I 
am  inclined  to  think  that  much  of  the 
goodness  of  people  does  come  in  that 
way,  unconsciously,  naturally,  as  the 


THE  VIRTUES  85 

light  flows  from  the  sun.  Yet  I  suppose 
that  in  our  present  order,  and  until, 
through  the  years,  the  better  time  ar- 
rives, we  must  very  often  ask  ourselves 
and  others  to  be  good  and  to  be  charit- 
able, just  because  it  is  right,  or  worse 
still  because  it  is  good  policy. 

A  man  grows  better,  more  human, 
more  intelligent,  as  he  practices  the 
virtues.  He  is  safer,  no  doubt,  and  the 
world  is  better.  It  is  even  true  that,  by 
the  constant  practice  of  virtues,  he  may 
come  finally  to  espouse  goodness  and 
become  thoroughly  good.  That  is  the 
hopeful  thing  about  it  and  the  reason 
why  we  may  consistently  ask  or  demand 
the  routine  practice  of  the  virtues.  But 
let  us  hold  up  all  the  time  in  our  teach- 
ing and  in  our  lives  the  other  course, 
the  development  of  the  inspiration  that 
includes  all  virtues  and  that  makes  all 
our  way  easy  and  plain  in  a  world  where 
confusion  reigns,  because  men  are  going 
at  the  problem  of  right  living  the  wrong 
way  around. 


86     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

The  practice  of  good  living  will  never 
be  easy  in  its  details,  but  if  it  is  sure  in 
its  inspiration  there  will  be  no  question 
of  the  final  triumph.  We  shall  have  to 
fight  blindly  sometimes  and  with  all  the 
strength  and  persistence  of  animals  at 
bay.  We  shall  fail  sometimes,  too,  and 
that  is  not  always  the  worst  thing  that 
can  happen.  It  is  the  glory  of  life  that 
we  shall  slowly  triumph  over  ourselves 
and  the  world.  It  is  the  glory  of  life 
that  out  of  sore  trouble,  in  the  midst 
of  poverty  and  human  injustice,  may 
rise,  spontaneous  and  serene,  the  spirit 
of  self-sacrifice,  the  unconquerable 
spirit  of  service  that  does  not  question, 
that  expresses  the  divine  tenderness  in 
terms  of  human  love.  Through  the 
times  of  darkness  and  doubt  which  must 
inevitably  come,  there  will  be  for  those 
who  cherish  such  a  vision,  and  who 
come  back  to  it  again  and  again,  no 
utter  darkness,  no  trouble  that  wholly 
crushes,  no  loss  that  wholly  destroys. 

If  we  could  not  understand  it  before. 


THE  VIRTUES  87 

it  will  slowly  dawn  upon  us  that  the  life 
of  Christ  exemplified  all  these  things. 
Charity,  kindliness,  service,  patience, 
—  all  these  things  which  have  seemed 
^so  hard  will  become  in  our  lives,  as  in 
his,  the  substance  and  expression  of  our 
faith.  The  great  human  virtues  will 
become  easy  and  natural,  the  untrou- 
bled mind,  or  as  much  of  it  as  is  good 
to  possess,  will  be  ours,  not  because  we 
have  escaped  trouble,  but  because  we 
have  disarmed  it,  have  welcomed  it  even, 
so  long  as  it  has  served  to  strengthen 
and  ennoble  our  lives. 


XI 

THE  CURE  BY  FAITH 

The  healing  of  his  seamless  dress 

Is  by  our  beds  of  pain  — 

We  touch  Him  in  life's  throng  and  press. 

And  we  are  whole  again. 

Whittier. 

I  CANNOT  finish  my  little  book  of  ideals 
without  writing  some  things  that  are  in 
my  mind  about  cure  by  faith  or  by 
prayer.  It  is  a  subject  that  I  approach 
with  hesitation  because  of  the  danger 
of  misunderstanding.  No  subject  is 
more  difficult  and  none  is  more  import- 
ant for  the  invalid  to  understand.  We 
hear  a  great  deal  about  the  wonderful 
cures  of  Christian  Science  or  of  similar 
agencies,  and  we  all  know  of  people  who 
have  been  restored  to  usefulness  by 
such  means.  Has  the  healing  of  Christ 
again  become  possible  on  earth  .^^  No 
one  would  be  more  eager  to  accept  it 
and  acknowledge  it  than  the  physician 


THE  CURE  BY  FAITH         89 

if  it  were  really  so.  But  careful  investi- 
gation always  reveals  the  fact  that  the 
wonderful  cures  are  not  of  the  body 
but  of  the  mind.  It  is  easy  enough  to 
say  that  a  cancer  or  tuberculosis  has 
been  cured  by  faith,  and  apparently 
easy  for  many  people  to  believe  it,  but 
alas,  the  proof  is  wanting.  The  Chris- 
tian Scientist,  honest  and  sincere  as  he 
may  be,  is  not  qualified  to  say  what  is 
true  disease  and  what  is  not.  What 
looks  like  diseased  tissue  recovers,  but 
medical  men  know  that  it  could  not 
have  been  diseased  in  the  most  serious 
sense,  and  that  the  prayer  for  recovery 
could  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
cure,  save  in  a  very  indirect  way. 

The  man  who  discards  medicine  for 
philosophy  or  religion  is  courting  un- 
necessary suffering  and  even  death. 
The  worst  part  of  it  is  that  he  may  in- 
duce some  one  else  to  make  the  same 
mistake  with  similar  results.  In  writing 
this  opinion  I  am  in  no  way  denying  the 
great  significance  and  value  of  faith  nor 


00     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

of  the  prayerful  and  trustful  mind.  If 
it  cannot  cure  actual  physical  disease, 
faith  can  accomplish  veritable  miracles 
of  healing  in  the  mind  of  the  patient. 
No  thoughtful  or  honest  medical  man 
will  deny  it.  Nor  will  most  medical  men 
deny  that  the  course  of  almost  any 
physical  illness  may  be  modified  by 
faith  and  prayer.  I  am  almost  saying 
that  there  is  no  known  medicine  of 
such  potency.  Every  bodily  function  is 
the  better  for  the  conquering  spirit  that 
transcends  the  earth  and  finds  its  neces- 
sary expression  in  prayer. 

There  really  need  be  no  issue  or  dis- 
agreement between  medicine  and  faith 
cure.  At  its  best,  one  is  not  more  won- 
derful than  the  other,  and  both  aim  to 
accomplish  the  same  end  —  the  relief 
of  human  suffering.  When  the  two  are 
merged,  as  some  day  they  will  be,  we 
shall  be  surprised  to  discover  how  alike 
they  are.  Christian  Science  is  rightly 
scorned  by  medical  men  because  it  is 
unscientific,  because  it  makes  absurd 


THE  CURE  BY  FAITH         91 

and  untenable  claims  outside  its  own 
field,  and  because  it  has  not  as  yet  in- 
vestigated that  field  in  the  scientific 
spirit.  When  proper  study  and  investi- 
gation have  been  made  it  will  be  founc^ 
that  faith  cure,  not  in  its  present  state» 
but  in  some  future  development,  will 
have  an  immense  field  of  usefulness.  It 
will  be  worthy  of  as  much  respect  in 
that  field  as  medicine  proper  in  its  own 
sphere.  As  a  matter  of  fact  both  medi' 
cine  and  faith  cure  are  miraculous  in  a 
very  real  sense,  as  both  depend  for 
efficiency  now  and  always  upon  the 
same  great  laws  which  may  be  fairly 
called  divine.  What  is  the  discovery 
that  the  serum  of  a  horse  will  under 
certain  circumstances  cure  diphtheria? 
Does  it  not  mean  that  man  is  tapping 
sources  of  power  far  beyond  his  under- 
standing.^ Is  man  responsible  save  as 
the  agent?  Did  he  produce  the  complex 
animal  chemistry  that  makes  this  cure 
possible?  Did  man  make  the  horse,  or 
the  laws  that  control  the  physiology 


92     THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

and  pathology  of  that  animal?  Here, 
then,  is  faith  cure  in  its  largest  and  best 
sense.  The  biologist  may  not  be  willing 
to  admit  it,  but  his  faith  in  these  great 
laws  of  God  have  made  possible  the 
cure  of  a  dread  disease.  Here,  as  in  all 
matters  of  pure  religion,  it  is  what  men 
say  and  write,  not  the  fact  itseK,  that 
makes  all  the  misunderstanding;  we 
make  our  judgments  and  conceive  our 
prejudices  from  mere  surface  considera- 
tions. Call  life  what  you  will,  —  leave 
out  the  symbolic  word  "God"  alto- 
gether, —  the  facts  remain.  The  true 
scientific  spirit  must  reverence  and 
adore  the  power  that  lies  behind  crea- 
tion. It  is  as  inconsistent  for  the  bac- 
teriologist to  be  an  unbeliever  as  it  is 
for  the  Christian  Scientist  to  deny  the 
value  of  bacteriology.  Medicine  is  in- 
finitely farther  advanced  than  Christian 
Science,  and  yet  Christian  Science  has 
grasped  some  truth  that  the  natural 
scientist  has  stupidly  missed.  When 
an  obsession  is  thrown  off  and  courage 


THE  CURE   BY  FAITH  93 

substituted  for  fear,  we  witness  as  im- 
portant a  "cure"  as  can  be  shown  to 
the  credit  of  surgery.  If  the  Christian 
Scientists  and  the  other  faith-curers 
were  only  less  superficial  and  less  nar- 
row in  their  explanation  of  the  facts,  if 
they  would  condescend  to  study  the 
diseases  they  treat,  they  would  be  en- 
titled to,  and  would  receive,  more  re- 
spect and  consideration. 

The  cure  and  prevention  of  disease 
through  the  agency  of  man  are  evident- 
ly part  of  the  divine  plan.  Our  eager- 
ness to  advance  along  the  lines  of  inves- 
tigation and  practice  is  but  that  divine 
plan  in  action.  The  truly  scientific 
spirit  will  neglect  no  possible  curative 
agent.  When  scientific  men  ridicule 
prayer,  they  are  thinking  not  of  the 
real  thing  which  is  above  all  possible 
criticism,  but  of  the  feeble  and  often 
pathetic  groping  for  the  real  thing.  We 
ask  in  our  prayers  for  impossible  bless- 
ings that  would  invert  the  laws  of  God 
and  change  the  face  of  nature  —  very 


94      THE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

well,  we  must  be  prepared  for  disap- 
pointment. The  attitude  of  prayer 
may,  indeed,  transform  our  own  lives 
and  make  possible  for  us  experiences 
that  would  otherwise  have  been  im- 
possible. But  our  pathetic  demands  — 
we  shall  never  know  how  forlorn  and 
weak  they  are.  Prayer  is  the  opening 
of  the  heart  to  the  being  we  call  God  — 
it  is  most  natural  and  reasonable.  If 
we  pray  in  our  weakness  and  blindness 
for  what  we  may  not  have,  there  is, 
nevertheless,  a  wonderful  re-creative 
effect  within  us.  The  comfort  and 
peace  of  such  communion  is  beyond  all 
else  healing  and  restoring  in  its  influ- 
ence upon  the  troubled  and  anxious 
mind  of  man.  The  poet  or  the  scientist 
who  bows  in  adoration  before  the  glory 
of  God  revealed  in  nature,  prays  in 
effect  to  that  God  and  his  soul  is  re- 
freshed and  renewed.  The  poor  wretch 
who  stands  blindfolded  before  the  firing 
squad,  waiting  the  word  that  ends  the 
life  of  a  military  spy,  is  near  enough  to 


THE  CLRE  BY  F>«iITH         9^ 

God  —  and  the  whispered  prayer  upon 
his  lips  is  cure  for  the  wounds  that  take 
his  hfe. 

The  best  kind  of  prayer  seeks  not  and 
asks  not  for  physical  relief  or  benefit, 
but  opens  the  heart  to  its  maker,  and  so 
receives  the  cure  of  peace  that  is  a 
greater  miracle  than  any  yet  wrought 
by  man.  Under  the  influence  of  that 
cure  the  sick  are  well  and  the  dead  are 
alive  again.  With  the  courage  and 
spirit  of  such  a  cure  in  our  lives,  we  shall 
inevitably  do  our  utmost  to  relieve,  by 
any  good  means,  the  physical  suffering 
of  the  world.  We  shall  follow  the  laws 
of  nature.  We  shall  study  them  with 
the  utmost  care.  We  shall  take  nothing 
for  granted,  since  by  less  careful  steps 
we  shall  miss  the  divine  law  and  so  go 
astray.  The  science  of  healing  will  be- 
come no  chance  and  irrational  thing. 
We  shall  use  all  the  natural  means  to 
relieve  and  prevent  suffering  —  there 
will  be  no  scoring  of  one  set  of  doctors 
by  another  because  all  will  have  one 


i)0     TftE  UNTROUBLED  MIND 

purpose.  But  more  to  the  point  than 
that,  men  will  discover  that  health  in 
its  largest  sense  consists  in  living  devout 
and  prayerful  lives  whereunto  shall  be 
revealed  in  good  time  all  that  our  finite 
minds  can  know  and  use.  There  will  be 
no  suffering  of  the  body  in  the  old  and 
pitiful  sense,  for  we  shall  be  so  much 
alive  that  disease  and  death  can  no 
longer  claim  us. 


THE  END 


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